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EVER TIMELY THOUGHTS 


BOOKS BY FATHER GARESCHE 

Published by Benziger Brothers 

Each, Net, $1.25; Postage 10 cents 

In Same Uniform Series 

EVER TIMELY THOUGHTS. Cheerful Consid¬ 
erations on Facts of Enduring Worth. Themes 
intimately affecting our spiritual welfare are ap¬ 
pealingly discussed, animating us toward a more 
perfect life in the service of God, and illumin¬ 
ating our way in these whirling unstable times. 

THE VALUES EVERLASTING. Some Aids to 
Lift Our Hearts on High. “There are papers on 
Purgatory, Heaven, prayer and similar topics, 
that will be read with great spiritual profit.”— 
Messenger of the Sacred Heart. 

LIFE’S LESSONS. Some Useful Teachings of 
Every Day. “Will be read and should be read 
by people who want to turn to best accounts 
their talents.”— Ecclesiastical Review. 

THE PATHS OF GOODNESS. Some Helpful 
Thoughts on Spiritual Progress. “It is a most 
readable book.”— Catholic Bulletin. 

YOUR OWN HEART. Some Helps to Understand 
It. “The Author knows how to talk of men’s 
faults, inspiring them to do better.”— Fortnightly 
Review. 

YOUR SOUL’S SALVATION. Instructions on 
Personal Holiness. “We know of no spiritual 
book which deserves to have a larger vogue 
amongst Catholics.”— Rosary Magazine. 

THE THINGS IMMORTAL. Spiritual Thoughts 
for Everyday Reading. “The subjects are im¬ 
portant, the treatment practical and persuasive.” 
—Catholic World. 

YOUR INTERESTS ETERNAL. Our Service to 
Our Heavenly Father. “He presents immortal 
truths in a direct way that enlists attention and 
arouses zeal.”— Catholic School Journal. 

THE MOST BELOVED WOMAN. The Preroga¬ 
tives and Glories of the Blessed Mother of God. 
“It is enjoyable, very interesting, edifying and 
highly instructive.”— Dominicana. 

YOUR NEIGHBOR AND YOU. Our Dealings 
with Those about Us. “Every busy Catholic 
should read it.”— St. Xavier’s Calendar. 


SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN PARISHES. 
Net, $2.75. Postage 15 Cents. 

“This book covers thoroughly the field of prac¬ 
tical and spiritual activity in Catholic parishes.” - 
The Magnificat. 







THE ASSUMPTION 


Murillo 




EVER TIMELY 
THOUGHTS 


Cheerful Considerations on 
Facts of Enduring Worth 

BY 

REV. EDWARD F. GARESCHE, S.J. 



New York, Cincinnati, Chicago 


BENZIGER BROTHERS 


PRINTERS TO THE PUBLISHERS OF 

HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE BENZIGER’S MAGAZINE 


1923 














T2>X&3SO 

•Q&e. 


ffmptimt potest. 

FRANCIS X. McMENAMY, S.J., 

Prap. Prov. Missounamos 


Dibit ©bstat* 

ARTHUR J. SCANLAN, S.T.D., 


Censer Libretum 


flmprtmatur 


►^•PATRICK J. HAYES, D.D 


Artkbtshop of Nr* York 


New York, March 27, 1923 


Copyright, 1923, by Benziger Brothers 
Printed in the United States of A me rice 




BeMcatlon 

TO THE MOST BLESSED VIRGIN MARY 
HOUSE OF GOLD 




PREFACE 


T HOUGHTS of a sort are tossed about now¬ 
adays thicker than the leaves in Vallombrosa. 
They are wafted to us on the wings of the 
wind that blows from gigantic printing presses. Vol¬ 
uminous magazines and corpulent Sunday supple¬ 
ments purvey ideas of a kind to all who will read 
them, and the number of such readers is infinite. 
Yet the thoughts which are thus supplied to our too- 
patient modem multitudes can scarcely be called 
ever-timely thoughts. 

They are timely, or at least they are given the 
stamp of timeliness for the moment while the peri¬ 
odicals which carry them forth are wet from the 
presses. They bear a momentary appeal. But look 
over the files of some of these commercialized pub¬ 
lications and see where are the thoughts of yesterday, 
much more of yesterweek and yesteryear. They 
have faded with the times that gave them birth. 

The thoughts which we seek to convey in the little 
papers which make up this volume are of another 
kind, and do not owe their timeliness to the happen- 

7 


8 Preface 

ings of the moment. These are indeed ever-timely 
thoughts because they are thoughts which rise from 
earth toward eternity. All of us have need in these 
whirling days to anchor our hearts and our minds 
betimes on some solid and enduring reflections lest 
we should become as changeful and unstable, of as 
unsubstantial a mind as the current literature we 
feed on. 

Like its predecessors of the same series, this book 
offers its readers wherewithal to pass profitably, and 
it is hoped pleasantly too, some of those moments 
when one can take up a book for a bit of quiet read¬ 
ing. Not to the credit of the book, but rather to 
the worthiness of its subjects, is due the ever- 
timeliness of its thoughts. 


CONTENTS 


Dedication. 

PAGE 

5 

Preface . 

7 

The Will of God .... 

11 

Our Tastes. 

23 

Our Dearest Enemies • 

33 

Confidence .. 

41 

Our Unbounded Power 

52 

Compassion. 

62 

God’s Great Experiment . 

72 

Picking at People .... 

83 

God’s Silence. 

92 

Curing Our Habits 

. 100 

A Significant Word 

. 109 

Wasted Riches. 

. 120 

On Looking Forward . 

. 128 

Eternity. 

. 137 

The Mirror of the Passion . 

. 146 


9 






10 


Contents 


PAGE 


The Vocation of Mothers . . 155 

Suppose They Did. 160 

The Painter of Flowers . . . 168 

Retreats for Working Men . . 173 

Spreading the Good Word . . 181 




EVER TIMELY THOUGHTS 


THE WILL OF GOD 

T here is a vast consolation in meditating 
with faith and trust on the great will of God 
and how it is unerringly accomplished in all 
the changes of this mortal world. There is yet more 
of comfort and assurance to be had from joining our 
poor, weak and fickle wills most utterly to His, and 
thus borrowing, so to say, the strength and the sure¬ 
ness of Omnipotence itself. Did we but understand 
all that is contained in Our Lord’s prayer, “Thy will 
be done on earth as it is in heaven,” the “Our 
Father” would be to us still more a well of sweet¬ 
ness and of strength. In times of trial as in times 
of peace think much upon the will of God, and grace 
will flow into your soul. 

Let us recall for a moment some of the great 
truths which our holy Faith teaches us concerning 
the will of God and its accomplishment. God is 
omnipotence itself, and nothing whatever is in the 
least perplexing or difficult for Him. He speaks, 
and the universe is made. He commands, and all 
things are created. What seems difficult, compli- 

11 


12 


The Will of God 

cated, desperate even, in the affairs of men, in the 
fate of the Church, in the intricacies of the history 
of individuals and of peoples, gives Him not the 
slightest trouble to solve and to adjust as He pleases. 
Even the free will of man, which He respects so 
completely during this time of probation on earth, 
cannot baffle or defeat His plans. Creator and 
master of heaven and earth, He rules by His own 
right and His own power, blessed and sure in all 
things and forever. 

Consider next the all-wisdom of God. In His own 
essence, by His own power, He knows all things per¬ 
fectly, past, present and to come, actual and possible. 
With a single glance He comprehends the entire 
universe. He knows, not alone what is, but what 
is to be, and what might be if other conditions ex¬ 
isted. Not only the fixed motions of necessary 
causes, of the unreasoning world of things, but also 
the actions of intelligent beings, of free creatures, 
of all men and women who are or shall be or might 
be on earth, are completely known to Him, and in 
one look, so to say, He sees them all. Nothing es¬ 
capes His notice, nothing can deceive or elude His 
knowledge, for of His own self He knows all things, 
and knows them perfectly as they are, to the last 
atom and in the most perfect degree. 

From all eternity God has known all things. In 
all eternity He considered the universe which He 


13 


The Will of God 

wished to create. It was all before Him in all its de¬ 
tails. While our poor and weak intelligence grows 
bewildered at the thought of this knowledge of God, 
and conjures up difficulties which it cannot fully 
penetrate or solve, this fact is clear—that there is no 
happening on earth, no circumstance in the lives of 
ourselves or of other men, which God has not fore¬ 
seen, and, for reasons good in the sight of His wis¬ 
dom and mercy, allowed to come to pass for His 
glory. 

This thought is a source of immense comfort to 
us in bearing the trials and sorrows of life. There 
is no single one of all the misfortunes that befall us, 
the pains that try us, the temptations that vex and 
the losses that sadden us, but was weighed, examined, 
considered, and allowed to occur for our good and 
for His glory by the all-merciful, all-loving and all¬ 
wise God. In His omniscience He foresaw them, in 
His mercy He considered them, and in His love 
He sent them to us to be ministers of His will and 
opportunities of grace and merit to us. Nothing 
can come to pass in our regard, however great or 
small, that has not first, so to say, gone through the 
hands of God. 

Look at your life in the light of this thought and 
see how it illumines and glorifies all things, even 
every trivial detail of your days. That sorrow 
which presses on you, it is a painful and hard thing 


14 


The Will of God 

in itself, but God has wished from all eternity that 
you should bear just that special sorrow for His 
love. He has estimated the difficulty of enduring 
it patiently, has supplied for you the graces you need 
to offer it up with resignation to Him, and He looks 
to you to be brave and patient and loving under it 
and to trust Him to relieve you when it has done 
all the good He wishes in your heart. It is there¬ 
fore a blessed sorrow, because it comes to you from 
the hands of God, and you well may say with St. 
Francis Xavier, “Lord, let not this trial pass away 
until it has done all that You desire in my soul.” 

Consider all the little things that come to pass in 
a single day of your life, the little vexations that 
give you chances to practice patience, the little op¬ 
portunities for service to others that offer you oc¬ 
casions of exercising charity, the small openings for 
a kind word, an encouraging glance even, which the 
hours bring. There is no one of them all but was 
foreseen and permitted by God from all eternity. 
To us, limited as we are in our attention, memory, 
intelligence, it is amazing that God can so attend to 
every slight circumstance of our every moment. But 
in God’s sight there is no little or great. With a 
single glance He comprehends all things, and the 
endless details of the universe no more distract His 
attention one from the other, than do the multitude 


The Will of God 15 

of objects that it shines on dim or bewilder the clear 
light of the sun. 

One may say the same of all the circumstances 
which surround us, of all the things which befall 
us, of all the contents of our days on earth. As 
far as we are concerned, it is the will of God that 
we should accept what He sends us, should use 
what He gives us for His glory and the good of our 
own souls, should work where He has placed us and 
with the means and opportunities which He has pro¬ 
vided for us, until at last He calls us in the way and 
at the time that He wills, to render an account of 
our stewardship. We are immersed, so to say, in 
the holy will of God. We are surrounded by the 
evidence of His will. We need only to look about 
us to see precisely in what circumstances He has 
meant to put us, what chances He has wished to give 
us, what temptations He wants us to overcome, with 
what tools He means us to carve our souls to His 
image, by what ways He means to lead us to heaven. 

For if God had willed to make us other than we 
are, He could have done so. If He had chosen to 
put us in other circumstances, we should be there. 
If He had liked to have us endowed with more tal¬ 
ents, we should have been given them. Being what 
we are and where we are, we see God’s will written 
large on everything about us. Because God can do 
all that He wills, and because the will of God gov- 


16 


The Will of God 

erns the universe most perfectly and completely, it 
is sure that whatever occurs comes to pass because 
He has willed to allow it, and hence there is nothing 
that can draw near us but upon it we may see written 
the evidence of God’s will. 

Trials pursue us, and we shudder to see them 
approaching, but as they come to us we may recog¬ 
nize upon them the stamp and the seal of God’s 
will. Opportunities run up to us in the way of life, 
and as they come and pass we may see written again 
upon them the sign of God’s will. Why should He 
have allowed trials to arrive, but that they might 
prove and sanctify us? Why should He permit us 
to be tempted, but for our merit? Why should He 
arrange from all eternity that chances of doing good 
should be opened before us, but that we might use 
them for His service now and our soul’s glory here¬ 
after? If we will make the effort vividly to realize 
how completely the whole universe is in the power 
of God, how utterly His adorable will controls all 
things, how impossible it is for even the slightest 
incident of the most insignificant day to escape His 
notice and His forethought from all eternity, then 
we shall begin feebly to appreciate how clearly the 
will of God is stamped on every detail of our lives. 

God deals with His creatures according to their 
nature. The unreasoning world of minerals and 
plants and animals. He rules by means of natural 


17 


The Will of God 

laws, swaying all things with a necessary rule, and 
keeping all in order and harmony so that the uni¬ 
verse may continue and the designs of God may un¬ 
erringly be accomplished by these myriads of crea¬ 
tures incapable of reason or of self-governance. So, 
under the sway of these natural laws, the great 
stars swing inevitably in their orbits, the currents 
of the sea cleanse the shores, the air clothes and 
nourishes the forests, the plants of land and of ocean 
feed their sentient inhabitants, the fauna of the lands 
produce and continue each its kind, and thus the 
world is kept fit as an abiding place for man, man 
the apex of all the pyramid of visible creation, whose 
willing service is to glorify God, and whose intelli¬ 
gence is to comprehend and to praise the wonders 
of His works. 

With man, a free and intelligent being, God deals 
otherwise than with His merely material creation. 
With man, besides the laws of nature which rule 
his animal part, there abide the freedom of will and 
power of understanding by which he can obey the 
moral law, written by God in the tablets of his 
heart. So God leaves man free, scrupulously re¬ 
specting the power of free choice which He has 
given the created human will. During all of man’s 
probation on earth, even to the last instant of his 
days of trial before he is summoned to the judg¬ 
ment, he is free. 


18 


The Will of God 

It is easy to see how God’s will is inevitably car¬ 
ried out by the inanimate world and by the brute 
creation. Necessary laws rule every motion and in¬ 
stinct there, and in fixing these laws and foreseeing 
their results throughout the ages God inerringly 
provided that His holy will should be carried out 
forever. Whatever is the result of these necessary 
laws is therefore according to God’s desire. But it 
is not so easy to understand how even the free actions 
of men manifest to us God’s will in our regard. 
For these are determined by men’s own wills, and 
they are too often in direct disregard of the moral 
law which declares God’s will within their hearts. 

But we must remember that God knows and 
foresees from the beginning the actions of all men. 
How God knows them, we cannot fully under¬ 
stand, for we cannot fathom the nature of the In¬ 
finite. Neither can we comprehend the unerring 
completeness with which, at a single glance, the 
intelligence of God comprehends all things, actual 
and possible, past, present and to come. Yet we 
know by reason and the teachings of the Church, 
that God does so comprehend all things whatsoever. 
Hence He knows from all eternity even the free 
actions of men, and sees what each one will freely 
do at such a moment, under such and such circum¬ 
stances, in all the complex history of the world. 

From all eternity, therefore, God has taken into 


19 


The TV ill of God 

account not only every smallest result of the oper¬ 
ation of the natural laws, of the course of the 
seasons and the stars, of the growth and death of 
plants and animals, of the life of our bodies and 
the material circumstances about us, but He has 
known with equal clearness and considered with 
equal wisdom every free action of those about us, 
whether good or evil. The good actions He ap¬ 
proves and desires, the evil ones He hates and 
abhors. But since man’s will is free he is free also 
to sin. God allows the evil actions of men, and 
makes them result in His greater glory and the good 
of His friends. For so infinite is the power and 
goodness of God, that even though He abhors and 
punishes all that is evil, He still can secure His 
own greater glory and the good of those who serve 
Him. The wickedness of evil men often supplies 
the trials which perfect the good. 

We may be sure then, in any moment of our 
lives, that God has foreseen every tiniest circum¬ 
stance, even the unkind actions of those about us, 
and has allowed it to come to be for the purposes 
of His eternal love and wisdom. To us life some¬ 
times seems but a haphazard of queer chances, a 
“dance of shifting circumstance.” But to God noth¬ 
ing is by chance, nothing is unforeseen or unallowed 
for. With us the favorite comparison for life is 
the ocean, with its wide, dangerous solitudes, its 


20 


The Will of God 

shifting tides and contrary currents, and the innu¬ 
merable waves that change and run on its unstable 
floor. But to the eyes of God every wave has its 
place and its mission, the winds obey His will and 
the currents do His bidding, and if we love and 
trust Him and serve Him faithfully He will surely 
bear us across the waters into the harbor, the safe 
and sheltered haven of bliss that never ends. 

It is not hard to learn in theory the truth of the 
provident foreseeing of God, nor to believe that all 
things are indeed subject to His will. We readily 
admit too, in theory at least, that all things that 
occur to us, whether from the working of inanimate 
nature or by the choice of men, are a manifestation 
of His holy will in our regard, since He has willed 
to allow these things to come to us and He can 
have but one motive that is worthy of Him—that is 
to say, His own greater glory and the salvation of 
our souls. We believe these things very firmly. But 
to reap from this belief the consolation which it 
should contain for us, we must go further and 
realize in each detail of our lives its practical appli¬ 
cation. 

A sorrow comes to us. Perhaps it is from the 
workings of inanimate nature, perhaps from the 
wicked wills of men that the calamity has arisen. 
No matter how or whence it has come, it cannot 
have reached us without the permission of God. It 


21 


The Will of God 

is He that has foreseen it from, eternity. In His 
infinite knowledge, which no detail can escape, He 
has examined it most comprehensively. He knows, 
endlessly better than we, its exact nature, conse¬ 
quences, duration. He gives us the grace we need 
in order to act as He wishes. It is part of His in¬ 
finite plan for our salvation, that this precise ex¬ 
perience should reach us at this special time of our 
lives. If we realized all this, how easy it would be 
to say, “God’s will be done,” not only with resig¬ 
nation but with joy, for God’s will is our salvation 
and sanctification, and He has surely allowed this 
to come to pass so that we may go higher in heaven. 

An opportunity opens before us to do some good 
work, to help some holy enterprise, to practice some 
precious virtue. To us it may seem that this oppor¬ 
tunity has come by chance; it arose out of some 
shift of events; or perhaps we arrived at it by reason 
of our own previous actions. What difference if 
we, being slothful at the time or indisposed to that 
particular bit of well-doing, neglect it and let it 
pass? But think for a moment. This opportunity 
is the result of God’s eternal planning for us; it is 
a gift to us from His singular love; He looks to 
see how we shall use what He has prepared through 
so many ages. If we realize all this, we shall be 
more solicitous, surely, that no part of God’s good 
gift shall overpass us. 


22 


The Will of God 

We may readily apply the same reflection to every 
incident of our lives. Temptations come to us only 
after God has foreseen and allowed them, and each 
has its purpose in proving and perfecting us accord¬ 
ing to His holy will. Good fortune is not “fortune” 
at all in the first sense of the word, but a gift from 
God which He has been intending to send us, ac¬ 
cording to our way of speaking, from all eternity. 
So, little things and great, hard things and easy, are 
forever bringing to us messages of the holy will of 
God. 

Think on these things in moments of depression 
when the soul needs consoling thoughts to nourish 
its courage and its hope. Close the eyes of the flesh 
and open the eyes of the spirit, so as to see, not the 
dull, disheartening appearance of things, but the 
great reality of God’s governing will working out 
forever the high purposes of eternal love. Then, 
with faith and hope and love, conform your will to 
the will of God, saying, in the prayer indulgenced by 
the Church: “May the most just, most high, and 
most lovable will of God be done, praised and 
exalted for all eternity!” 


OUR TASTES 


I T HAS been shrewdly remarked that our use of 
leisure is often more important and indicates 
our character more surely than the regular 
work whereby we get a living. The conditions of 
modern life force certain occupations on a great 
number of people, and thus they gain their liveli¬ 
hood in ways which are more the result of necessity 
than of their own free choice. They turn their hand 
to this or that because this or that position is open 
to them, not because they prefer it. Even those who 
enter on special trades or professions often do so 
more as the result of circumstances than from any 
very strong personal preference. But the things we 
do between times, the friends we choose, the com¬ 
pany we keep by preference, the amusements we de¬ 
light in and the books we love to read, these are in 
greater measure the indication of our personal prefer¬ 
ences. They smack of our individuality. They indi¬ 
cate our tastes. They give an index to the precise 
kind of person we have made ourselves. 

Our personal tastes and preferences in the matter 

23 


24 


Our Tastes 


of friends, of amusements, reading, and so on 
through all the catalogue of the occupations of our 
leisure, are of vast importance because they intimate 
so clearly our own character and viewpoint. But our 
tastes in all these things have an even greater import¬ 
ance because they constantly determine and mold 
the outlines of our disposition. The daily task by 
which we gain our living has indeed a notable in¬ 
fluence upon us. Doing the same work, day after 
day, elicits certain habits, stimulates definite faculties, 
makes prominent some features of our talent and lets 
others rust from habitual disuse. Just as a black¬ 
smith grows burly with swinging hammers and 
heaving bars, and a farmer stiff and heavy of tread 
from walking in plowed fields, so those who are en¬ 
gaged in less material occupations, are molded to 
some degree by what they work in. Routine in 
stores and factories tends to dry up original thought 
and make the body an automaton, while work of 
great variety which requires initiative and swift de¬ 
cision, tends to cultivate the corresponding faculties 
and make the worker more alert and self-dependent. 
There is a type of the executive person as there is of 
the salesman, of the clerk and of the scribe, and the 
traits of all these types are developed in the in¬ 
dividual by the influence of this occupation. 

But the things you turn to for recreation and by 
preference, the company you seek, the books you read, 


Our Tastes 


25 


the amusements you love, these things have a yet 
more powerful influence, in their way, in molding 
the personal traits by which you are distinguished 
from the general run of your associates. Because the 
choice of these things is quite voluntary and spon¬ 
taneous, and because we yield ourselves to them by 
preference, they have all the more influence in color¬ 
ing insensibly, by their welcome reactions, our inti¬ 
mate character and thoughts. From them our tastes 
can be justly estimated. Those tastes in turn are in¬ 
fluenced and deepened by them. Habits grow in us 
from repeated exercise of the same or similar actions. 
Each time we choose a loftier or a less excellent 
object, as the case may be, for friendship, entertain¬ 
ment, reading and so on with the rest, we deepen our 
preference for that manner of object, and confirm 
our taste, for better or worse, according as the 
object is worthy or the opposite. 

A brief introspection will show us of the truth of 
these observations. Do you wish to estimate your 
own level of taste and feeling? Begin by consider¬ 
ing frankly what is your customary choice in friends, 
amusements, books. Is it refinement and elevation 
of character, goodness and gentleness, intrinsic merit 
and honest worth, that attract you in the one or the 
other of your friends? Do you choose of set pur¬ 
pose what is genuine, noble and sincere? If so, then 
you may be sure that you have refined and right 


26 


Our Tastes 


tastes in these important matters, and as you go on 
thus wisely choosing, you will find your tastes grow¬ 
ing yet more correct and good. In proportion as you 
are sincere in desiring and firm in choosing only 
what is genuine, and in refusing to be dazzled by 
seeming merit or carried away by flashy pretense, in 
just that proportion your taste will grow more solid 
and refined, your appreciation more trustworthy and 
secure. 

If, on the other hand, you discover by sincere self¬ 
inspection that your tastes are rather for pinchbeck 
and tinsel than for genuine metal, that you take up 
with friends more because they flatter your foibles 
and agree with your weaknesses than because of their 
own merit and worthiness, if you prefer the current 
and the vulgar in reading and amusements instead of 
the more elevated and refined, if you run with the 
crowd in your tastes and gulp down whatever the 
favor of the mob applauds just at the moment, then 
you have reason to suspect that your taste is not 
quite all it should be and to make some definite 
effort to better your personal preferences. Indeed, 
it is unfortunately true that if you discover your 
tastes to be quite ordinary and usual and not at all 
different from those of the common run, then you 
have reason to be dissatisfied with your own stand¬ 
ards. One must nowadays, unhappily, beware of the 


Our Tastes 


27 


ordinary standards of taste. One must be a little 
unusual if one is to keep on the side of good taste and 
refinement. 

This has always been true indeed, that good 
taste leans away from the crowd. The very word 
“vulgar,” which we use as the commonest synonym 
for what is coarse and unrefined, is from the Latin 
word which means a crowd. The shrewd old 
Romans took it for granted that the number of the 
refined and cultured would always remain a minor¬ 
ity, and that the general mob would be lacking in 
special taste and refinement. The days of de¬ 
mocracy may, by degrees, change all that. But, so 
far, even universal education (which does not, alas! 
include effective culture and refinement) has been 
unable to elevate the taste of the majority. For 
proof one need only look at the popular amusements 
and current reading. For one entertainment, or one 
book, that is refined and elevating, one finds a dozen 
that are cheap, coarse and crude. The purveyors of 
popular amusement and popular reading, shrewd 
commercialists as they are, have gauged the general 
fancy with a sharp eye to dollars and cents. The 
result of their expert conclusions is expressed most 
eloquently in the stuff they serve in theaters, in 
moving-picture palaces, in the periodicals whose 
glaring covers flaunt on the book-stalls. Need any- 


28 


Our Tastes 


one go to the trouble of proving that the public 
taste today is not particularly high, when one sees 
the bill-boards and the book-stalls? 

We may perhaps flatter ourselves that we are be¬ 
yond and above the influence of this prevalent vul¬ 
garity of public tastes. True, we read and notice 
these things and are amused by them. But it is 
mere amusement that we feel and nothing more. 
We have no taste for these trivialities, but simply 
glance at them to keep up with the times. It is not 
to them that we would turn by preference. This is 
all very well to say, but it is a simple fact, whether 
we realize it or not, that the things we read and the 
amusements in which we find our recreation color 
the mind and determine the inclination of our 
thoughts. By being habitually amused and enter¬ 
tained with what is cheap, vulgar and trivial, we 
insensibly degrade our taste and accustom our in¬ 
telligence and fancy to feed upon this insipient and 
unwholesome diet. Just as the reading of excellent 
literature insensibly trains the taste and elevates the 
fancy, so the devouring of cheap and tawdry stuff 
degrades and dulls the finer sensibilities and lowers 
the standard of our tastes. 

It is very expedient, therefore, that we take some 
care in this matter of our tastes. It will not do at 
all merely to follow our fancy and take up at hap¬ 
hazard whatever blows our way. With a pernicious 


Our Tastes 


29 


activity and astonishing perseverance the purveyors 
of cheap and trivial reading cast it at every door and 
force it into every hand. It is mere commercialism 
that determines the circulation of the greater part of 
modern “literature.” If we allow ourselves to be 
wheedled into reading everything that comes our 
way, we shall cultivate a very common and vulgar 
taste indeed. 

There is a cheap timeliness about modern print, 
which attracts the unwary. But in a year, that 
shallow varnish of popularity has worn away. 
Where are the books of yesteryear? It may have 
been true in some favored times of the world, that 
popular fancy was a guide to good taste and that the 
many chose their amusments and their art discreetly. 
Yet that time is surely passed away. One must go 
against the current and run counter to the popular 
favor in many things if one would reach a standard 
of good taste in reading and amusements. 

It was a cynic who said, “Be virtuous and you will 
be eccentric.” Like most cynical sayings, this one 
is not even true in the realm of morals. But it is 
true in the realm of good taste. To be excellent, one 
must be a bit out of the ordinary. It is by one’s 
individualities of taste, that one shows one’s personal 
training in such matters. To have good taste merely 
as others have and to take the color of the general 
atmosphere about one, is no great evidence of cub 


30 


Our Tastes 


ture. But to have the power of choice and discrimi¬ 
nation, to be able to select and enjoy what is best 
from among the miscellaneous stuff which is served 
up to us, this shows a personal discrimination and 
does us some credit. 

As we are wise, then, we shall cultivate this in¬ 
dividual discrimination, this habit of seeking out 
what is excellent and exquisite according to our 
lights. We need not fear to be a bit unusual and to 
go apart a little from the beaten path. Our in¬ 
dividuality is precious to us, and it must be main¬ 
tained by keeping up the habit of personal choice. 
Neither need we fear to lose enjoyment by culti¬ 
vating our tastes. We shall gain much more true 
pleasure and satisfaction by learning to like what 
appeals to the best in our nature, than by satisfying 
ourselves with what is less elevated and genuine. 
Our faculties are limited. We can only achieve a 
certain definite measure of reading, reflection, speech, 
enjoyment. Why not give ourselves the benefit of 
the best there is, and train ourselves to take the 
sweetest honey from the choicest flowers, rather than 
hover indiscriminately above blossoms and above 
weeds ? 

This final reflection should move us, that the love 
and pursuit of what is most excellent in matters of 
taste and judgment, is most conformable to the better 


Our Tastes 


31 


part of our human nature and therefore tends to 
ennoble and refine us and make us more apt for 
spiritual things. A wise author has said that the 
artistic and refined temperament is most suited for 
sanctity. Certainly sanctity ennobles and refines, 
and many of the saints, like St. Teresa and St. 
Francis de Sales, have been illustrious for good taste 
as well as for holiness. Reason enough, then, to ex¬ 
amine how we stand in the matter of a careful dis¬ 
crimination, and to endeavor by deliberate choice 
and studied self-discipline to elevate our tastes 
and increase our appreciation of what is genuinely 
good. 

By doing all this for the glory of God and with the 
intention of mounting a little nearer, by the aid of 
His creatures, to that Uncreated Beauty whose de¬ 
lights ravish the blessed, we shall still further refine 
and sanctify this self of ours so capable of the 
sublimest flights of goodness, as it is, alas! able also 
to descend into such dark abysses. It is ours to choose 
whether we shall give rein to our nobler self which 
craves for what is beautiful and pure, or to the baser, 
whose appetites incline to things of the earth earthy, 
to the allurements of the flesh. In cultivating our 
tastes by the deliberate choice of what is refined, 
worthy, noble and excellent, we are forever bringing 
out the angel in us and subduing our lower and 


32 


Our Tastes 


coarser selves. Thence the importance of culti¬ 
vating our tastes and of using rightly those moments 
of leisure and recreation when we can freely select 
our friendships, pleasures and avocations. 


OUR DEAREST ENEMIES 



APPRECIATE our friends. They are 


dear to us. When we count 


over, as we should often do, the gifts and 
blessings of God, so as to return thanks for them, it 
is of our dear and loving friends that we think 
among the first of our blessings. They are our best 
possession in this world, because their affectionate 
and patient goodness will supply us for the loss or 
need of almost every earthly blessing. If we are 
poor, their means are ready for us; if we are ill, 
they will nurse us; when in affliction, we shall be 
consoled by our friends, and we can lean on them 
in our weakness. We have also one of the most ex¬ 
quisite joys in life from returning their friendship, 
sharing their joys and doing for them in distress 
what they would so readily do for us in time of need 
or sorrow. It is extremely easy, therefore, to thank 
God for our friends. 

But have we ever thanked Him enough for our 
dear enemies? Do we appreciate quite enough what 
a true blessing of God it is to have with us also some 


33 


34 


Our Dearest Enemies 


who dislike, afflict and perhaps even hate us. Here 
is a consideration worth a little pondering! “This 
is, of course, a mere paradox,” someone will say, per¬ 
haps. “Enemies are not dear or precious at all. Of 
course Our Lord did command us to love our 
enemies, but by that He meant to tell us to forgive 
them and to wish them well. But to say that it is 
really an advantage to us to have people who dislike 
us and disapprove of us, who are opposed to us and 
even hate us, is a bit too much. It is hard enough 
to forgive one’s enemies and to wish them well. But 
to thank God for them, and be glad one has them, is 
more than I can swallow.” 

Well, let us see. To begin with, who are our 
enemies? Those who dislike, oppose and cross us. 
Most of us have happily no dark and melodramatic 
enemies like the villains of popular thrillers and of 
the movies, who plot and scheme to destroy us. 
Those whom the ordinary man or woman counts as 
enemies are the ones who oppose, dislike and cross 
them. The critical, observant people with sharp eyes 
and sometimes sharper tongues, those who, far from 
flattering us, or making us feel that we are better 
than we are, point out, in a most uncomfortable way, 
faults and failings, and inform us of a number 
of things which we had rather not admit even 
to ourselves. “And do you say,” our imaginary inter¬ 
locutor will remark again, “that these people are 


Our Dearest Enemies 35 

really dear and to be given thanks for their unkind¬ 
ness ? Is it conceivable that anyone should seriously 
say that it is a blessing to have enemies? That is 
not common sense and, therefore, it cannot be perfec¬ 
tion. Put up with these people, of course; render 
them good for evil; but as to counting them dear 
and being grateful to them, we beg to be excused.” 

Yet it is the literal truth, that these people, criti¬ 
cal and unpleasant, may really be more precious and 
salutary to us than our dearest friends. For our 
opponents show us ourselves as we are are. 

“Oh wad some pow’r the giftie gie’ us 
To see oursel’s as ithers see us!” 

sang Burns in a memorable couplet. In the eyes of 
our friends, we seldom see ourselves as we are. 
Their kindness disguises our shortcomings, and their 
forbearance glosses over our misdoings. For candid 
sharpness and directness of vision, commend me to 
the critical and the opposed. Their remarks, some¬ 
times jerked out in an unpleasant fit of temper, cut 
like a knife, but they also cut to the line. Sometimes 
you may have profited more in the matter of 
self-knowledge by one impatient remark, spoken off¬ 
guard by someone who was angry and tingling with 
unpleasant candor and truth, than you would have 
gained from worlds of sugared and honeyed com- 


36 


Our Dearest Enemies 


ments received from your loving friends. Our 
enemies, therefore, or at least those who oppose us, 
are precious because they tell us precisely what they 
think. Again, they help us to correct what is amiss. 

There was once a man high up in political life 
who had struggled for twenty years with an evident 
failing. His friends had remonstrated with him, 
painstakingly and kindly. He had also delivered to 
himself a number of most earnest and heartfelt ad¬ 
monitions and made corresponding resolutions, which 
were broken with as persistent frequency. One day, 
in the midst of a severe political dispute, his 
antagonist became heated to the point of perfect 
candor, and, before a large audience, descending into 
personalities, excoriated the failing of his opponent, 
which happened to be bad temper, with such a 
marvelous ridicule that the crowd roared with 
laughter, recognizing the truth of the accusation. 
The politician left the stage, fuming with rage at 
what he thought was an unjustifiable personal at¬ 
tack. But that one public excoriation did more for 
him than all the previous admonitions. From that 
day he was ashamed to lose his temper because the 
smiles of those about him recalled too bitterly to his 
mind the bitter sarcasm of that fiery-tongued 
politician. 

But this is not all the good our enemies do. They 
give us exceedingly precious occasions of merit. Our 


Our Dearest Enemies 


37 


Lord pointed out, at the end of the Sermon on the 
Mount, that when we love those who love us, we do 
nothing very extraordinary, since even the heathens 
do this. But He bade us to love those who hate us, 
and to be kind to those who despise us, because in 
doing this we show that we are children of our 
Father who is in heaven. The saints delighted in 
returning good for evil, and some of the most heroic 
and glorious episodes in the history of mankind have 
been occasioned by the bitter attacks of malignant 
enemies. We shall never have an opportunity of 
suffering so much as did the saints, but in our small 
way we can exercise their divine and Christ-like 
charity. It is those who resist, oppose and dislike us, 
who will give us the best opportunities to practice 
gentleness and forbearance. 

Finally, if we are of the right material and serious 
in our wish to be good, it is our dearest enemies who 
will bring out the noblest qualities in us. Generally 
speaking, most good people are best in times of 
affliction. For one who can be thoroughly good, de¬ 
voted and pious with complete prosperity, there are a 
hundred who blossom out into unsuspected virtue 
when some misfortune or affliction tries them. 
Most of us are like those sweet-scented plants which 
only give forth their aromatic fragrance when they 
are trampled on. When all goes well with us, we 
are inclined to become self-sufficient, proud and 


38 


Our Dearest Enemies 


selfish. It requires rubs and tramplings to make us 
humble, gentle and kind. It is our dearest enemies 
who do the trampling for us. They are the ones 
who generously supply that due amount of bruising 
which makes the fragrance of our charity ascend to 
the angels. If we had no one to vex and try us we 
should lack many chances of great merit. 

All this may seem theoretical and visionary. We 
have only to look to the world as it is, to see its 
entire and literal truth. All the lives of the saints 
are histories of trials well borne, and these trials in 
most instances came from their dearest enemies. A 
great part of their biographies is taken up with the 
account of what others did to them, and sometimes 
the trials which they had to bear were altogether 
amazing. Their saintliness is brought out by the 
way they acted toward those who persecuted and 
offended them. Thus, one is startled to read in the 
life of such an ecstatic as St. John of the Cross, for 
instance, how certain of his brethren shut him up in 
a dungeon and persecuted him unmercifully. So, too, 
St. John Francis Regis, St. Peter Claver, even St. 
Francis de Sales and St. Teresa, had to endure 
agonizing afflictions from others, and we can see 
very clearly in the retrospect how precious to them 
were their dearest enemies. 

No doubt, the providence of God gave them those 
who would misunderstand, afflict and vex them, pre- 


Our Dearest Enemies 39 

cisely because they needed this to bring them to the 
perfection of divine charity for God and for their 
neighbor. And the singular thing about these 
enemies of theirs is that they were so often good and 
well-meaning people. St. Ignatius is, of course, a 
shining example of this persecution from the good. 
When he began his wonderful career of public 
ministrations he was forthwith set upon by well- 
meaning, zealous people, was accused of heresy, tried 
by the Inquisition, threatened with the rack, with 
tortures and the dungeon, and compelled again and 
again to go through painful legal trials to vindicate 
his fair name. So, too, the Society of which he is the 
founder, in common with other religious organiza¬ 
tions, has had to suffer from the mistaken zeal of the 
good as well as from the malice of the evil, and it is 
a matter of ordinary experience how much perfectly 
good and well-meaning persons will vex and try 
one another. 

All this springs from our imperfections, but it is 
not without its providential purpose. It really re¬ 
quires more supernatural charity and forbearance to 
endure the well-meant afflictions of the good, than to 
suffer the persecutions of the wicked. Let us, there¬ 
fore, when we suffer afflictions from those who are 
set against us, look for the hand of Providence and 
kiss God’s loving fingers that chastise us. Let us 
remember to thank God no less for our opponents 


40 


Our Dearest Enemies 


than for our friends, and let us see through the 
benignant designs of God, who lets others vex and 
afflict us so that we may receive from these trials the 
good which He intends. 

We shall not want for this benediction. The de¬ 
fects of human nature and the ordinary and common 
faults in us and in those about us will supply us 
abundantly with precious contradictions. The main 
thing is, while these trials are upon us, and after 
they are gone, not to miss any of the self-knowledge, 
the opportunities of merit, the cultivation of our 
nobler and more generous selves, and the likeness to 
our persecuted Saviour which we can gain from the 
visitations of our dearest enemies! 


CONFIDENCE 


T HE desire to succeed in life, like the desire 
to be happy, is common to us all. Go any¬ 
where, in civilized and savage lands, among 
Christians or pagans, and you will find everyone 
everywhere trying to succeed. Ideals of success, and 
aims and methods of trying, vary indefinitely of 
course. But to succeed in life according to his own 
notions of success, is the purpose of every mortal. 

It is extraordinarily important, though, to have a 
right notion of what true success signifies and of 
what are the sure means to achieve it. The one is 
as necessary as the other. Supposing, as we shall for 
the present, that you have the truest ideals and the 
soundest principles concerning genuine success in 
life, that you look at all things in the light of reason 
and faith and are intent on using your life to the 
best advantage for the service of God and your 
neighbor and the good of your soul; it still remains 
for you to consider whether you have the right means 
in hand and are taking the right attitude and method 
of action to carry out the good you purpose. 

41 


42 Confidence 

Passing by for the present the other elements of 
success, the other requisites for employing our gifts 
and talents and time to the best advantage, let us 
dwell a bit on one requirement which somehow is 
often overlooked by those who are earnestly bent on 
succeeding in the truest sense and anxious to improve 
whatever opportunities God has given them. For 
want of this requisite, too, many promising careers 
have failed to reach their crown of achievement. 
Too many hopeful beginnings have had sad endings 
because of a lack of this necessary quality. The re¬ 
quirement we speak of, is a spirit of proper and 
reasonable confidence. 

If characters could be analyzed as material com¬ 
pounds are, and the elements of which they are 
composed could be described by weight and measure, 
their deficiencies determined and their excesses 
pointed out precisely, then doubtless the result would 
be surprising, and to none more than to the pos¬ 
sessors. Men would perceive then that mishaps and 
failures which they had blamed on circumstances or 
accidents of fortune or the actions of others, really 
come from wants and defects in their own character. 
They would see how much success depends upon the 
cultivation of their personal qualities, and would be 
able, by filling in what is deficient and cutting off 
what is excessive in their own make-up, to conquer 


Confidence 43 

circumstances and command success where now they 
are headed for failure. 

And, perhaps, if such scientific analysis of charac¬ 
ter were made, the quality requisite for success which 
would oftenest be found lacking in good and well- 
meaning folk, would be this one of confidence. The 
want of confidence, the lack of courage which fol¬ 
lows on that want, have wrecked more promising 
careers than we commonly realize. 

It is an ordinary observation that if a man is 
firmly persuaded that he can do a thing, can achieve 
a difficult adventure, overcome a stubborn difficulty, 
gain an arduous end, then he is likely to succeed in 
doing it. Confidence stimulates his powers, gives 
strength to his arms, and sureness to his feet. The 
heart beats high with courage when a man feels 
assured of success, and he will bear fatigues and pain, 
put forth terriffic efforts, persevere through agon¬ 
izing discouragements, if only he is full of an in¬ 
domitable spirit of confidence. 

On the contrary, it is quite certain that if a man 
has no confidence in himself and in his success, he is 
unfit for enterprise and doomed to failure. To ex¬ 
pect mishap is to court an accident. Once let a man 
lose his nerve on a difficult path, and he will slip and 
go headlong. Where confidence walks with light 
step and leaps over obstacles, discouragement shuffles 
along stumbling, and falls at trifles. 


44 Confidence 

Apply this to your own life, and it will throw per¬ 
haps some needed light upon your past failures and 
your future prospects. You have certainly desired 
and labored for success. Your motives were good, 
your aspirations worthy. To make the most of op¬ 
portunity, to serve God and your neighbor well with 
what gifts you have, this has been the purpose of 
your efforts. Why, then, has a more generous 
measure of success not come to you ? What lack in 
your own character has held you back? May it not 
have been a want of proper and necessary confidence? 
Hardly aware, perhaps, of your own lack of becom¬ 
ing assurance, you may have still hesitated to believe 
that you could accomplish the great and generous 
things you desired, and so were afraid to try. With¬ 
out trying, without a courageous beginning, no 
worthy end can be reached. To take the first step, 
energetic and unafraid, demands a steady confidence. 

We remember an amusing tale by one of the 
French masters of comedy, which illustrates this 
truth in whimsical wise. His hero is a Gascon, 
full of energy and restlessness, but no great marvel 
of courage. A friend invites him to an excursion in 
the Alps. The good man is afraid to risk his life or 
limbs in scaling peaks and crossing glaciers where 
one slip might mean a fall of a thousand metres. 
But his friend assures him in all confidence that the 
dangers of the Alps have been reduced by the system 


Confidence 45 

of an Alpine Company to mere appearances of peril. 
Every step is guarded and every motion supervised, 
he says, so that the would-be adventurer, shielded 
even against his will, keeps only the appearance of 
risk, and steps out securely over the once-perilous 
places, ensured against mishap. 

The hero believes this officious lie and takes there¬ 
from the sublimest confidence. He rushes into 
danger and out of it with a calm assurance that 
nothing evil can befall him, which makes his step 
firm and his head steady in every peril. Armed with 
this confidence born of delusion, he performs 
prodigies of agility and courage, and conquers the 
perils of the Alps, most real and terrible, but which 
his new-got assurance had robbed of all their horrors. 
For all the extravagance of the tale, it carries a 
kernel of sound truth. Many a man who is hesi¬ 
tating, stumbling, and falling on his way, could run 
and climb with steady foot if only he were shod 
with confidence. 

Granted, then, that confidence is so essential a 
disposition to success, how may we go about acquir¬ 
ing so desirable a quality? We must distinguish 
between different sorts of confidence. One kind of 
assurance is based on a man’s own personality and 
natural powers. Conscious of his own strong will 
and innate capacity and talent, such a one may be 
filled with the conviction that he is born to succeed, 


46 Confidence 

and may rush with confidence along the beginnings 
of his way, sure of himself and master, to a certain 
degree, of circumstances, when others, unaware of 
his conscious powers, look on and laugh or wonder. 
Thus Napoleon was filled with confidence even in 
his callow youth, long before he became the leader 
of armies. Thus was Dante so persuaded of his 
destined immortality as a poet, that, in the first 
canto of his Inferno, he imagines the supreme poets 
of all time making a place for him in their shadowy 
company. Thus Horace felt when he sang, “I have 
built a monument more lasting than brass!” But 
this manner of confidence is beyond the reach of 
common men, nor is it the most precious in itself. 
The loftiest achievements are born of assurance of 
another kind. 

The noblest confidence is that which springs from 
faith and reason, and this is the confidence of the 
saints, which we all must share in our own measure 
and foster in ourselves as they did, by thoughts and 
prayer. No human achievements can match the ex¬ 
ploits of the saints, and no merely earthly confidence 
can bear comparison with theirs. They were men 
and women much like ourselves in their weaknesses 
and passions, their difficulties, deficiencies and trials. 
They were called to exploits which far exceeded the 
achievements of great conquerers like Napoleon or 
great poets like Dante and Horace. Their battles 


Confidence 47 

were not with mustering armies of men, but with 
their own selves and with the unseen powers of evil. 
They were, besides, conscious of their own weakness 
and incapacity for good, to a degree proportionate to 
their clear inward vision and profound self-knowl¬ 
edge. Yet their sublime and unfaltering confidence 
is among the most extraordinary and universal of 
their characteristics. 

St. Francis of Assisi was one of the humblest of 
men, and so great was his sense of his own lowliness 
and weakness, that he could never be persuaded to 
assume the dignity of the priesthood, and would not 
advance beyond the holy grade of deacon. Dis¬ 
trust of himself and fear of his own weakness were 
habitual with him. Yet to this lowliness was joined 
so sublime and unconquerable a confidence, that he 
did not hesitate to found two great Orders and to 
send his followers, destitute, for the love of Christ, 
of all earthly succor, to the farthest parts of the 
earth to conquer the world for God. He himself 
set forth with heroic intrepidity to convert a king 
sunk in the errors of Mohammedanism, and his 
fearless courage won the favor of the astonished 
monarch and saved the life of the saintly preacher, 
where a less perfect confidence would have met with 
fury and murderous resentment. 

St. Ignatius of Loyola, stricken by that happy 
cannon-ball which deprived Spain perhaps of an 


48 Confidence 

obscure captain, but gave a glorious general to the 
hosts of God, read on his sick bed the stories of 
God’s heroes, and conceived therefrom a sublime and, 
to us, surprising confidence of doing, himself, such 
like things for God. “Dominic has done these 
wonders,” he said to himself; “Francis and Benedict 
have become saints—so will Ignatius likewise.” 
Armed with this assurance he plunged headlong into 
a life of prayer and mortification such as took heaven 
itself by storm. With burning will he hurried along 
the ways of perfection, making the more speed be¬ 
cause he had begun so late. Nothing discouraged his 
steady ardor. As God disclosed little by little what 
things He wished Ignatius to do, Ignatius went forth 
with confidence to achieve them. He would learn 
Latin, he would form a spiritual army, he would 
send his men to Europe, or to the Indies. He had 
confidence for anything, and his calm assurance was 
so grounded in God’s will, that he made the astonish¬ 
ing remark that were his Society itself suppressed, 
it would take him but a quarter of an hour before 
the Blessed Sacrament to recover his repose of spirit. 

If we wish to learn the secret of irresistible con¬ 
fidence, we shall do well to study the methods of the 
saints. St. Teresa, that valiant woman, whose 
courage bore her like a warrior through conflicts 
within and without her, that a strong man might 
tremble to endure, through illness and suffering, 


Confidence 49 

through slander and opposition, through the mis¬ 
understandings of friends and the attacks of enemies, 
once betrayed the secret of her sublime assurance in 
a simple saying. “God and Teresa,” she said, “can 
do whatever God Himself can do.” Her confidence 
was indomitable because it was grounded upon 
Omnipotence itself! 

We shall be wise deliberately to imitate the 
method of the saints, and to establish our personal 
confidence, so necessary for our success in life, on 
the same solid and enduring basis which supported 
theirs. We may say and think with absolute assur¬ 
ance, what the great apostle of the Gentiles says in 
his sublime and heroic confidence in God. “I can do 
all things,” he cries, “in Him who strengtheneth 
me!” Every soul of us may reecho that mighty cry 
of courage. It is literally true of us all as it was of 
St. Paul himself, that we can do all things which 
God desires us to accomplish, in Him who has 
infinite wisdom and power to aid us in whatever He 
gives us to perform. 

Analyze the diffidence which so far has interfered 
with your success, and you will find that it springs 
chiefly from a consideration of your own weakness 
and incapacity. When generous resolutions and 
heroic plans come to your thoughts, you are perhaps 
inclined to turn your eyes within you and to see how 
very weak and worthless you truly are of your own 


50 Confidence 

self. The sight does not make for confidence. In 
spiritual exploits and endeavors, we are the more 
likely to be discouraged if we look at our own poor 
faculties, scarred and weakened by Adam’s sin and 
by our own. No wonder we lack confidence if we 
depend upon ourselves. 

But take into your consideration the power and 
goodness of God, and then the shadow of your own 
littleness and imperfections will be lost in the bright¬ 
ness of His infinite ability and willingness to aid 
you. God and you together can accomplish whatever 
God can do, and the circumstance that you bring for 
your share only incapacity and meanness, makes little 
difference when you have the aid of infinite great¬ 
ness and strength. Those who climb dizzy cliffs 
always fix their eyes on high and look toward the 
great summit which calls them onward. If they 
drop their gaze to the depths below, they grow con¬ 
fused and fall. 

At all costs, then, whatever effort may be needed, 
let us all take heart of grace and cultivate the gen¬ 
erous confidence of the saints, looking to God, and 
not to our own littleness. When discouragement 
and faint-heartedness assail us, as they often will, 
just when we are planning to do great things in 
God’s service, let us remember the wisdom of the 
saints, and say in our hearts with faith and under- 


Confidence 51 

standing: “I can do all things in Him who 
strengtheneth me.” “God and I can accomplish 
whatever God Himself can do.” 


OUR UNBOUNDED POWER 


N OT the least strange among the paradoxes of 
our human nature is our strength-in-weak¬ 
ness, the marvelous union in us of pitiful 
feebleness and astounding powers. Our physical 
nature is weakness itself when compared to the vast 
strength of natural forces. “Today we are but a 
little mucus,” says Marcus Aurelius, “tomorrow, 
dust and ashes.” Yet, how extraordinary is the 
strength we can develop by aid of our intelligence, 
which gives us command over the powers of the 
wind and the seas, puts electricity at our bidding, 
and nerves our weak hand with all the power of 
steam. 

Our own limbs will scarcely bear us forward for 
long at a faster rate than some pitiful three miles an 
hour. But carried on the elemental powers which 
we have harnessed for our use, we can rival the swift¬ 
ness of the winds and outrun the fleetest of our fel¬ 
low creatures. Even the conquest of the air has 
been given to this generation, and where man used 
to watch and envy the swiftness of the eagle and the 

52 


Our Unbounded Power 53 

sea-gull, he can rise now among the flocks of heaven 
and outdo them all in airy flights. 

We rejoice in these sublime achievements, and 
exalt in the consciousness of human powers. But 
there is a far greater mightiness in us, a constant 
and unbounded force waiting at our hand, which we 
neither realize nor treasure. We have a power so 
God-like and sublime, that it makes us like to 
angels in dominion, co-rulers with God Himself in 
His universe, and able to direct the course of human 
destinies and heal and help and save great numbers 
of mankind. 

The nature of this power is indeed such that it 
makes us sharers in some sort in the omnipotence of 
God. By its exercise, which is at every moment 
within our reach, we associate ourselves with God 
and make Him, if we may dare to use the phrase, 
our partner and co-worker. It is His divine mercy 
that has allowed us to employ such terms in speak¬ 
ing of this power of ours, for He has given us assur¬ 
ance that there is no limit to the use we may make 
of His omnipotence, provided we act according to 
the rules of His divine providence. 

So sublime, indeed, and so unbounded, is this 
power of which we speak, that St. Teresa, who had 
experienced deeply its efficacy and amplitude, dared, 
as we have recalled in another chapter, to express 
her intimate knowledge by a wonderful saying. 


54 


Our Unbounded Power 


Filled with amazement at God’s goodness in bestow¬ 
ing so immense a faculty upon us, and remembering 
the examples of its efficacy, she cried out one day in 
an ecstasy of gratitude and appreciation: “God and 
Teresa can do whatever God Himself can do!” 

Having said so much about this marvelous power 
of ours, it is perhaps superfluous to give it a name. 
There is but one means by which we, feeble, im¬ 
potent, wretched in ourselves can so change the uni¬ 
verse and sway the coarsing of the ages. How can 
we enter into the souls of other men, inundate them 

M 

with God’s graces, “bend the stubborn heart and 

• » 

will, melt the frozen, warm the chill, guide the steps 
that go astray”? By what effort of our own can we 
change even the course of human events, bring to 
pass things that we desire for our soul’s good and 
for the souls of others, avert misfortunes, gain tem¬ 
poral goods and blessings, scatter benedictions over 
the entire earth? 

How may we, never leaving our own threshold, 
laboring in the quiet of a hidden chapel or in the 
seclusion of our small room at home, go forth with 
power and efficacy to the uttermost ends of the earth, 
bring the Gospel to nations that sit in darkness and 
in the valley of death, convert sinners, help the 
dying? Nay, how may we even penetrate beyond 
the grave and knock mightily upon the gates of 
purgatory until the great angels who are guardians 


Our Unbounded Power 55 

there, relent and open wide the gloomy gates and 
release to the glory of heaven myriads of souls who 
but for our great power would have sojourned 
there throughout many weary weeks of years? 

The incarnate God, the Pillar and Ground of 
Truth, whose nature it is neither to deceive nor to 
be deceived, has spoken of this power of ours in 
terms which are so ample, that did we not know who 
He is that speaks, we should be tempted to think 
them tinged with exaggeration: “Ask, and it shall 
be given you,” He says; “seek, and you shall find; 
knock, and it shall be opened to you.” What a wide 
and general promise! What iteration and reitera¬ 
tion of assurance! But even this saying is not 
forcible enough for the Eternal Truth: “For who¬ 
ever asketh, receiveth,” He says again, and “he 
that seeketh, findeth, and to him that knocketh, it 
shall be opened.” There are no qualifications to 
this promise save those which reason itself and the 
perfection of God impose. Providing we ask, seek, 
knock as we should and for things that we should 
desire, God puts no limits to His generosity. This is 
the charter and the warrant for our power. 

But the Divine Goodness was not content even 
with this sublime declaration, “If you ask the 
Father anything in My name,” He cried out, “He 
will give it you.” He complained that His apostles 
did not use as He desires, the abundance of the 


56 


Our Unbounded Power 


power He gives to us. “Hitherto,” He says, “you 
have not asked anything in My name. Ask, and you 
shall receive; that your joy may be full.” The 
whole life of Christ is a constant lesson of the power 
of prayer. For thirty years it was His own chief 
exercise. For every day that He spent in active 
labors of preaching and teaching, He had spent ten 
days in the hidden life of labor and prayer, of 
prayer which was most efficacious labor, and labor 
which was most availing prayer. 

In the midst of His wearyless journeys and 
preaching, when the multitude thronged around Him 
and one would have thought that His every moment 
would have been devoted to teaching and to healing 
the bodies and souls of men, He still took time for 
long hours of prayer. He began His public life with 
forty days of prayer in the desert. The solitude of 
Olivet, saw His prostrate form, silvered by the 
moon, bent motionless in prayer. He went to the 
desert to pray. He, the Omnipotent God, who could 
do all things by a single act of His all-powerful 
will, yet chose in His human nature to give us the 
example of prayer, and would not depart from that 
law of our being, that the greatest exercise of our 
faculties, the most sublime and unbounded power 
given our human nature, is the power of prayer. 

The example of Our Saviour justifies that maxim 
of the saints, that all things should be begun, car- 


Our Unbounded Power 57 

ried on and brought to an end with prayer. His 
life, from its first instant on earth was such a 
paean of prayer, that our dull intelligences cannot 
faintly conceive the intensities and ardors of that 
intercession from the instant when, assuming human 
nature, He said in the words of the Scriptures, “In 
the head of the book it is written of Me that I 
should do Thy will, O God,” to the moment when 
bowing His head on the cross, He cried out, “Father, 
into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” 

His public life, which began with the forty days’ 
prayer in the desert, ended with the prayer of His 
agony. He prayed for Jerusalem with tears, for His 
disciples at the Last Supper with joy and anticipa¬ 
tion. Prayer was the breath of His life, the joy of 
His heart, the power of His soul, the life of His life. 
He gives us an example of prayer in gladness and in 
sorrow, in peace and in trial, in the quiet of humble 
labor and in the press of strenuous affairs. “Pray 
always!” cries out Our Lord in His holy Gospel. 
He but puts into words what His example had 
preached most eloquently through the sublime course 
of His mortal life. 

All the saints without exception have loved and 
employed this unbounded power of prayer. Some in¬ 
deed made prayer the business of their days, like 
those old hermits and solitaries who, driven forth 
into the deserts by the persecutions of Roman em- 


58 


Our Unbounded Power 


perors, Decius and his like, found solitude so sweet 
and prayer so healthful for their spirit, that they 
never returned to the haunts of men, but made the 
solitude echo with their holy prayers and canticles. 
From that day to ours, religious life in monasteries 
and convents, has been in great measure dedicated to 
prayer. Even those Religious who spend much of 
their time in active labor, intersperse their toils 
with moments of prayer. Their ideal, like that of 
their Model and Master, is to pray by labor and 
to labor in prayer for the salvation of mankind. 

The efforts of the saints are extraordinary, their 
preaching, writing, journeying, teaching, their mul¬ 
tiplied and incessant toils for the glory of God and 
the good of souls, exceed what one would think 
possible to human nature. Yet, perhaps, nay, we 
may say surely, the greatest of their achievements, 
the most fruitful of their labors, was their incessant 
prayer. The presence of God was with their 
thoughts continually. In the midst of every trial 
and toil they spoke to Him, pleaded with Him 
borrowed, by their patient and confiding supplica¬ 
tions, the aid of His omnipotence. 

What their example teaches us, their eloquent 
words persuade us also—to make good use to the 
limit of our ability of that unbounded power which 
God has given us in promising to heed and answer 


Our Unbounded Power 59 

our prayers. St. Alphonsus Liguori wrote an entire 
volume on prayer, and in its Preface he pleads with 
all who read, to spread the book abroad and make 
it known to all men not for the sake of him who 
wrote it, but so that all may learn and realize the 
priceless treasure they have in prayer. “Pray each 
day,” he says, “for the needs of the day. If you ask 
today, God will help you today, but for tomorrow 
you must ask tomorrow. Pray to persevere, and 
pray also that you may continue praying to perse¬ 
vere.” With • insistent ardor, with unwearying 
repetition, the Saint exhorts us to employ this 
measureless faculty we have of borrowing God’s 
omnipotence by prayer. 

The powers of man over the physical world mani¬ 
fest themselves visibly and appeal to our senses. We 
can see the great masses of machinery which hurl 
themselves into action at the touch of a slight lever 
or the pressing of a delicate control. We see the 
hills melt away under the strokes of laboring shovels, 
vast buildings rise from earth, great harbors reach 
their moles into the sea. We mark the mighty ships 
cleaving the stormy ocean, the lightsome vessels of 
the air droning down the sky. We look upon the 
marvels of electricity and steam, the working of 
delicate machinery which spins and weaves and 
prints and stamps and carries on a thousand intricate 


60 


Our Unbounded Power 


processes with almost human sensitiveness and pre¬ 
cision. These are the visible results of the powers 
of man over the material universe. 

But our unbounded power of prayer does not 
show itself in such swift and tangible manifestations. 
It needs the eye of faith to perceive that through 
the whole warp and woof of human experience run 
like golden threads the consequences of prayer. The 
sum of human history bears witness to that un¬ 
bounded power. The life of the individual Chris¬ 
tian manifests its efficacy. Yet, we see now only 
very dimly the results of prayer. We realize only 
by faith how constant and immense is its influence. 

The more merit ours, and the wiser we, if we are 
solicitous without wearying to exercise to the ut¬ 
most this sublime power. The fatigue we feel, the 
dulness, the doubts which haunt us concerning the 
efficacy of our prayer, are only so many reasons for 
persevering more indomitably and for exercising 
more industriously this heavenly power of ours. 

God tries us in many ways when we pray. At 
times dryness and distractions consume the soul. 
The heavens seem to be of brass and to offer an im¬ 
passible resistance to our petitions. The things we 
plead for seem indefinitely delayed in their accom¬ 
plishment. Our efforts become almost intolerably 
hard. Precisely then is the time to persevere in 
prayer. We cannot exercise too great an industry 


Our Unbounded Power 


61 


to become proficient in prayer. No diligence is too 
extreme to learn the holy art of turning all our 
lives and all our works to prayer. Our own good, 
the welfare of those dear to us, the very destinies of 
the Church and the world are in our hand to help 
and further if we will, and the means of exercising 
this unbounded power is—humble, confident, perse¬ 
vering prayer. 


COMPASSION 


S OMETIMES—and surely it is a special grace 
of God and the finger of the Most High 
touching and moving our hearts—we feel a 
rush of deep compassion for the sorrows and the 
miseries of our fellowmen. It may be the sight of 
some one who is especially afflicted, that moves us to 
this gentle sympathy and takes our thoughts from 
our own concerns to make them dwell pityingly and 
with love upon the sorrows of others. It may be the 
mere recollection of what we know or can guess of 
the vast sum of human afflictions, of the great and 
grievous suffering which men’s sins and follies have 
drawn down upon them, that stirs us to com¬ 
miseration. 

So our heart melts in pity. Our own afflictions 
dwindle away by comparison with all the trials that 
others are compelled to suffer. We feel our souls 
uplifted and purified from some of the dross of 
selfishness by the immense sympathy we feel for the 
necessities and distresses of our fellowmen. Our 
inward vision, too much bent upon our own con- 

62 


Compassion 63 

cerns and troubles, is now lifted to look out upon 
the world of men. The great multitudes who fill 
the earth with their sighs and groanings, become sud¬ 
denly more real to us and move us to compassion. 
We breathe a prayer to God for the help and conso¬ 
lation of all who are in affliction, and with Christ- 
like charity we love and pity all mankind, friends 
and enemies, known and unknown. 

We may well give our hearts over to this noble, 
purifying impulse of compassion. We shall be wise 
deliberately to cultivate the habit of feeling for the 
afflictions of others and of embracing with our sym¬ 
pathy the entire world of sorrow. To have a tender 
heart, to feel Christian compassion for the sufferings 
of others, is a virtue that like the quality of mercy 
(to which indeed it is most closely akin) blesses him 
that gives and him that takes. 

We are too much, all of us, the center of our own 
horizon. Stand where we will, when we look with 
our bodily eyes abroad over the world, each one of 
us sees himself to be the center of a vast circle 
bounded only by the limit of vision and where every 
line converges to his all-important self. It is only 
an optical illusion, to be sure, and the circle of our 
individual horizon exists nowhere in fact. Yet, 
wherever we go, our gaze refers all things to our 
own small center, and we judge of sizes and dis- 


64 Compassion 

tances, of importance and of measure, by referring 
all things to ourselves. 

It has been remarked that this trick of our eyes 
has a counterpart in the tendency of our inward 
vision to judge everything likewise by its relations 
to and distance from our own precious persons. 
Instinctively we refer everything to the center of our 
own interest and concern, estimating events and 
things in so far as they have reference to ourselves. 
Within certain limits this tendency of ours is of 
course natural and right. Our first duty is to attend 
to our own affairs, and well-ordered charity, accord¬ 
ing to the much-abused but very worthy maxim, 
begins at home. The constant danger is, however, 
not that we shall neglect our own interests as we 
conceive them, but that the too great concentration 
of our concern on our own selves will actually de¬ 
feat the end of our strivings. To think too much of 
self, to plan too exclusively for self, is to neglect 
our most important and necessary service to others 
and thus to do self a mortal injury. 

Whatever, therefore, tends reasonably to counter¬ 
act this inordinate impulse toward the center of our¬ 
selves, is of great benefit to our life and character. 
A heart which is forever bent back upon its own de¬ 
sires, needs, sufferings, becomes morbid and rank 
with self-pity just as a thicket tangled and twisted 
upon itself breeds unhealthy fungi under its dark 


Compassion 65 

and poisonous shade. Self-pity, a diseased sensitive¬ 
ness to one’s own sufferings, is a malady of these 
introspective times. Much of the feverish craving 
for novelty and excitement which we see manifested 
everywhere about us nowadays, may he due to a des¬ 
perate reaction against the tendency men feel within 
them to analyze their own sorrows and dwell upon 
their own small personal concerns. 

Compassion, a thought and feeling for the sor¬ 
rows of others, an abiding interest for other men’s 
concerns, is a far surer, nobler antidote for false 
self-pity than is wild distraction or feverish amuse¬ 
ment. Compassion does not, like these other reme¬ 
dies, act like an opiate and deaden feeling without re¬ 
moving the source of the evil. Rather, like a true 
cure, it sweeps away the evil humors and heals the 
festering wound. To pity others, to feel for their 
griefs, is pure balm for our personal anguish. We 
cannot pity ourselves very much nor grow very dis¬ 
couraged over our own small share of suffering if we 
have grace to realize and compassionate the huge 
sum of human sorrow. 

And what motives we have for this Christ-like pity 
of mankind! What claims the sad children of Adam 
have upon our continual compassion! Merely a 
glance over the world, little as we know of it, re¬ 
veals unending occasions for pitying and suffering 
with (for this is the meaning of compassion) the 


66 Compassion 

sorrows of men. In the circle of your own ac¬ 
quaintance, among the comparatively few whom you 
personally know, there are many who have to suffer, 
and various are the afflictions which either their own 
folly or that of others or the common lot of man has 
brought upon them! Their bodily pain, their 
mental misery, the losses of money or of goods, the 
deaths of those dear to them, the physical or mental 
afflictions which they have to endure, these, if we 
realize them, must move us to compassion. Com¬ 
pared to the sum of affliction even of all those whom 
we know, our own personal griefs dwindle into 
insignificance. 

But look wider afield, and consider the sufferings 
and trials of those who live in the same city as your¬ 
self. What are your individual vexations and afflic¬ 
tions as compared with theirs? Put your share of 
misfortune into that great total of afflictions, and it 
will be lost completely in comparison. There are 
those, it may be, among your fellow citizens who 
would gladly change places with you and would con¬ 
sider that, in taking your lot as it is, they were 
passing from suffering to peace. At all events, com¬ 
pared to the mass of common afflictions, you have 
only a very little part of suffering. 

Extend your vision once again, and embrace the 
whole nation in which you live, with its hundred 
millions of mortals each one bearing some load of 


67 


Compassion 

want, sorrow, affliction, unsatisfied desire, anxiety, 
illness, physical pain or spiritual anguish. The men 
and women you meet upon the streets are carrying 
each one a burden unseen but no less real and sensi¬ 
ble to them. So, too, are the thronging millions 
whom you do not see, but who are going each his 
way under a weight of trial. God’s providence, 
which tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, allows 
each one some salutary suffering; nor can we quarrel 
with God’s mercy, which dispenses or permits afflic¬ 
tion for His own glory and the good of souls. 
Matched with the sorrows of a nation, one’s own 
particular burden becomes so light as to be incon¬ 
siderable by comparison. Yet what is the sorrow even 
of a nation, compared to the total of the whole 
world’s misery? 

The imagination reels and faints when we put it 
to the task of conceiving the multitudes of human¬ 
kind. The statisticians who have cast up the num¬ 
ber of living mortals place it at about fourteen hun¬ 
dred millions of men, women, and children in the 
whole world. If we beheld a million together—and 
to see such a crowd we should have to ascend to 
some great height and look abroad over a vast plain 
crowded almost to the line of the sky—it would seem 
to us as though the whole world must be gathered 
together. Yet fourteen thousand such immense 
multitudes would be needed to marshall the numbers 


68 


Compassion 

of living men. Every one of them, who has reached 
the age of consciousness and reflection, is aware of 
certain griefs and trials of his own. Some indeed are 
light-hearted and comparatively free from care, 
others are plunged in the depths of inexpressible 
misery. But one and all have their share of suffer¬ 
ing. Multiply even the average grief of men by 
fourteen hundred million and then compare your in¬ 
dividual trials to this immense sum of sorrows! 

It is needless to continue and try to conceive the 
total of history. Every generation has its own share 
of grief, and how many such generations have lived 
and suffered and passed away. What is our suffering 
compared to theirs? The woes which now may seem 
so important to ourselves, set in the midst of this 
immense universe of affliction, dwindle and wane by 
comparison like a candle set among the stars. Lift 
your eyes to heaven of a summer’s night and ask 
what show the faint light in your window would 
make among those galaxies. Even so, your sorrows 
would shine among the sorrows of mankind. Pity 
the griefs of other men, of those about you, of those 
of your country, of the world, of history, and in that 
great compassion your individual smarts will be 
ashamed and vanish away. 

But the noblest, most precious fruit of true com¬ 
passion is not merely to assuage our personal sorrow. 
It is rather to relieve and help the misfortunes of 


69 


Compassion 

other men. That expansion of the heart, that sud¬ 
den clarifying of the vision, that instinctive lifting 
of the eyes to look pityingly and with understanding 
upon others’ wounds, is a grace given us not merely 
for our own sake, but for the profit and aid of our 
neighbors. Indeed, it is the first in a chain of graces. 
From compassion and sympathy comes the desire to 
help and comfort the sorrowing. From this desire 
springs the will of service. With such a true will 
to comfort and bring solace to those about us, we 
become good Samaritans, binding up the wounds of 
those we find beaten, bleeding and distressed, lying 
beside our way. This practical service for the re¬ 
lief of sorrow is the choice fruit of the blossoming 
of our compassion. 

We have all a certain tenderness of heart which 
makes us capable of compassion, and enough noble¬ 
ness of nature to respond to the impulse to comfort 
the sorrowful when we are sensible of their misery. 
If the realization of the griefs of others can pierce 
through that outer crust of indifference which hedges 
about our hearts, it will touch us to pity and to help¬ 
ful action. Unhappily our own affairs are too en¬ 
grossing. The more need to attend particularly to 
the sorrows of others and to respond with care to 
those impulses of divine grace which shatter the bar¬ 
riers about our hearts and let in compassion. 

Once alive to the affliction about us, and sensible 


70 Compassion 

of our own power to help relieve it, we shall not be 
long in making noble efforts to console and assist 
those whom we find within the reach of our influence. 
And if mere compassion with others’ sufferings is a 
balm for our own distress, the actual effort to re¬ 
lieve their affliction is far more effective in making us 
forget and disregard our own misfortunes. Have 
you ever known anyone whose energies were sincere¬ 
ly given to relieving and helping the woes of others, 
and who had any disposition to repine at or dwell 
upon his own personal trials? 

One last word concerning this active exercise of 
mercy which should be the fruit of our compassion. 
It is good always to remember that God has put in 
our grasp an almost infinite power of helping others. 
Some few we may effectively aid and console by our 
personal ministrations. But to a far greater multi¬ 
tude our compassion can go forth and minister con¬ 
solation by the all-powerful aid of prayer. Prayer 
puts in our reach the omnipotence of God. Who shall 
set limits to what we can accomplish in consoling 
others by means of prayer? To pray for the afflicted 
and suffering throughout the entire world and for 
those in particular whose miseries are known to us, 
is an act of general and efficacious mercy more wide- 
reaching in its results than we can conceive. 

We should pray often and with fervor and con¬ 
fidence, for all who are in affliction. To read or 


71 


Compassion 

hear of any misfortune should start in our soul an 
answering outcry of prayer that will rise to the 
throne of God and win His instant assistance for 
those who are the object of our compassion. The one 
condition which His Eternal Mercy has placed for 
the outpouring of its favors is, that He be asked to 
bestow good things on those in need. “Ask and it 
shall be given you.” If to ask for ourselves means 
surely to receive from His ready bounty, shall not 
our petitions for others win for them also His bless¬ 
ings? Such prayers have the added merit and 
efficacy of Christian charity. Nay, He will more 
readily answer our prayers for ourselves if He sees 
us insistent in praying also for others. 

Such are some of the good things which this 
precious quality of Christian compassion can ensure 
us if only we open our hearts wide to the influence 
of the Holy Spirit and give ourselves over to that 
feeling for others’ sorrows which makes us so like 
the pitying Saviour of mankind. When next we see 
some neighbor in distress, or feel the sweet tide of 
compassion rising in our heart, let us yield ourselves 
to that blessed grace, and help and pray for the 
afflicted. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall 
obtain mercy.” 


GOD’S GREAT EXPERIMENT 


H OMELY comparisons sometimes help us 
very powerfully to understand great spir¬ 
itual truths. Not long ago we were 
visiting an agricultural station where interesting 
experiments were being tried with various sorts of 
plants. The grounds were laid out in carefully- 
measured plots, and upon a sign before each plot 
were recorded the precise conditions of the experi¬ 
ment, the nature of the soil, its chemical analysis, 
its qualities and disadvantages, the character and 
quantity of the fertilizer which had been given to 
each plant, the nature of the plant itself, and the 
time of planting. All this was recorded with an 
exactness and a care strange to the uninitiated. Our 
friend, the master of the station, considered each 
plot with an interested and appraising eye, and was 
eloquent in his explanations. We stopped before a 
space on which some clover was trying bravely to 
make a showing, but with pitiful success. The 
plants were thin and spindling,. The yield was 
sparse and poor, and we remarked to the master of 

72 


73 


God’s Great Experiment 

the station, “That plant seems not to be making a 
good record for itself.” 

He gazed reflectively at the placard. “Ah, yet, it 
is,” said he. “Considering the wretched nature of 
the soil, and that we have supplied no cultivation 
and very little fertilizer, this brave little plant is do¬ 
ing very well, indeed. In fact, we can recommend it 
now for barren lands because where another sort of 
clover would not grow at all, this will produce a 
fairly good crop and without any attention what¬ 
soever.” 

So in spite of its mean appearance this plant was 
making rather a good record for itself, by its suc¬ 
cess in growing at all under such adverse circum¬ 
stances. 

We passed another plant. It was luxuriant and 
green, and the grain stood deep in sturdy rows. 

“Ah, there,” said I, “is a successful growing. 
Surely you are going to give that plant a high 
rating, indeed!” 

Again my guide looked at the placard. 

“No,” said he, “not at all. In fact, I am afraid 
we shall have to reject this variety, or rate it very 
low, because you will notice that in this plot the 
very best of fertilizer has been given in just the 
proper quantity, and it has been watered besides and 
tended with unusual care. So, though the grain 
looks high and strong, it is not doing half as well as 


74 God’s Great Experiment 

might be expected. With all that care and advan¬ 
tage of soil and moisture we should have three times 
this crop by now.” 

So we went on, meeting everywhere surprises. 
What looked like an extremely creditable growth 
proved, on investigation of all the particulars, to be 
rather a wretched showing in return for all the care 
that had been lavished upon it; while time and again 
plants which seemed to be fit only for rejection, 
were getting an excellent average because they were 
doing so well under adverse circumstances. 

If one considers a bit, this experience is a parable 
of the spiritual life. How many men and women 
become exceedingly discouraged because they do not 
make a better showing in the things of the soul! 
How many others are inclined to judge severely and 
to condemn those about them, because they consider 
the virtue of others weak, and their growth in the 
spiritual life intolerably slow. But remember, we 
ourselves are God’s great experiment. Who knows, 
how do even we ourselves know, just what con¬ 
ditions of soil and moisture and cultivation God has 
put for us and for others, and just how much yield 
the great Husbandman expects from what He has 
bestowed? The merit and the rating of the plants 
that grew in that test station depended, not on their 
absolute yield, but on the showing which they made 
in their environment. In some similar way our 


75 


God’s Great Experiment 

rating in the eyes of the great Husbandman of souls 
will depend to some degree on what yield we make 
to Him for the precise graces herewith He waters 
our soul, the soil He has set it to grow in, and the 
strokes He gives it with the tools of His providence. 

There is much consolation in this thought, and 
likewise much warning. The account which each 
of us is to render is not precisely like the account of 
other men. Each one of us is to appear for a sep¬ 
arate judgment, and in that judgment we shall be 
called to answer for no other graces and favors and 
opportunities but those special gifts which God has 
bestowed upon ourselves. Therefore, our constant 
care and unwearying solicitude should be to cor¬ 
respond to the graces which God is giving us, and 
not to repine nor grow discouraged because He is not 
giving us others, far more excellent perhaps in them¬ 
selves, and which He is showering on those whom 
we see about us. Our growing is to be according 
to our gifts, and God allots us the grace which He 
wishes us to have. Our praise or our blame is to 
come not from what we might have received, nor 
for the circumstances in which God might have 
placed us, but from the yield which our soul has 
made under the actual rain of grace and dew of 
inspiration given to us in the very soil where God 
has set us to grow. 

This must likewise be a warning to us not to 


76 God’s Great Experiment 

judge others, nor to seek to anticipate the reward 
or blame which they will receive from Almighty 
God. Because they, too, are part of God’s great 
experiment. He has put each one of them in that 
particular plot of ground, and given to each those 
gifts and advantages which are necessary to try and 
test that special soil. As we do not know the con¬ 
dition of its tillage, nor how much rain God has 
rained upon it, nor what cultivation He has given 
it, how can we dare judge its merit by the fruits 
that we see? 

We may vary the comparison a little. Sometimes 
to the pupils of agricultural schools are allotted plots 
of ground on which they themselves are to make 
their experiment. To one will perhaps be given a 
very barren bit to cultivate, and his skill will be 
judged by the manner in which he handles that 
unpropitious soil to make it productive. Another 
may be given an extremely fertile plot, and his 
credit will be measured by his ability to bring out 
the full, rich yield which its fertility promises. Now 
we, if we wandered about among these plots of 
ground, would be extremely puzzled to know which 
tiller of the soil was getting greater credit in the 
eyes of his teacher, because it would be quite im¬ 
possible to judge by the luxuriance of the crop or 
the looks of the field, just what proportionate suc¬ 
cess was being achieved, since we should not know 


God’s Great Experiment 77 

the conditions against or in favor of each experi¬ 
menter. 

It is so, too, with the affairs of the soul. God 
gives to each of us our plot of ground to till and 
work on, and to some He gives exceedingly stony 
ground. Their characters are hard, unyielding, un¬ 
responsive to spiritual motives. They are a barren 
plot and need to be dug and fertilized and watered 
and walled about, before they will produce even a 
few blades of spiritual growth. On the other hand, 
God gives to others deep, rich, and fertile souls full 
of natural goodness, like that of St. Bonaventure, 
of whom it was said that he seemed not to have 
fallen in Adam—so holy were his impulses, so kind 
was his heart, and so spiritual his nature. Yet 
the merit of each one depends not directly upon 
what sort of soil God has given him to cultivate, 
but on what use he makes of what God has given. 
Many a one will shine in glory before the angels 
and the saints because out of a stony, harsh, and 
barren soil he has with huge labor and many tears 
and much sweat brought forth fruit worthy of the 
kingdom of heaven. 

These reflections should be a great consolation 
to us, because they show that our merit does not 
depend altogether on the outward results of all our 
efforts and trials, but rather on the endeavor we 
make and on the energy we develop. One need 


78 God’s Great Experiment 

never repine at having been given by God’s provi¬ 
dence a harsh and difficult nature, troublesome to 
till and hard to cultivate, because the reward that 
we shall receive and the credit that we shall have 
in the eyes of God and His saints for all eternity, 
will not depend upon the soil, but upon the tillage; 
not upon what we have received from God, but 
upon the proportionate return we have made Him 
for His gifts. 

The lives of some of the saints show this truth 
in a singular way. It is told of St. Jerome that his 
was a harsh, irascible and difficult nature, and it 
was only by extreme mortification and constant vigi¬ 
lance, that he repressed the fierce outbursts of his 
stormy temper. You remember, perhaps, the tale of 
that Pope who was one day walking through the 
galleries of the Vatican, when he came upon a pic¬ 
ture of St. Jerome, in which the Saint is represented 
beating his breast with a stone. 

“Ah, Jerome, Jerome,” said the Pope, looking 
thoughtfully at the picture, “you would never have 
been a saint were it not for the stone!” 

It was only by the severest tilling, by constantly 
harrowing his flesh with penance and mortification, 
that St. Jerome succeeded in rising to the glory of 
the saints. So, too, it was said of St. Francis de 
Sales, the sweetest of men, that admirable missionary, 
the unction of whose words and the tenderness of 


79 


God’s Great Experiment 

whose address made him miraculously effective in 
winning heretics to the Faith, that his natural char¬ 
acter was exceedingly harsh and severe. Indeed, he 
confessed himself that the soil of his heart was ex¬ 
ceedingly stony and hard, and it was only through 
years of deliberate endeavor, that he became the 
image of gentleness and sweetness which history 
declares him to have been. 

“I have been many years,” he said, “storing up 
in my heart a little drop of sweetness and of charity.” 

Once, when a young man was brought to him to 
be severely reprimanded for his incorrigible wicked¬ 
ness, the Saint’s gentle reproaches failed to move his 
heart. The young man went away impenitent, and 
his friends came to St. Francis and remonstrated 
that he had not been more severe with him. 

“Why did you not scold the lad?” they said. 

“Ah, well,” said St. Francis, “I have been such 
a long time gathering into my heart a little drop of 
honey, that I do not dare to be harsh even for a 
moment and with such a wicked young man, for 
fear that I should lose in that instant the little drop 
of sweetness and charity which I have been so many 
years in acquiring. Besides,” he added, “if the 
young man is not moved by tenderness and sweet¬ 
ness, no reproaches will correct him.” 

One can fancy the long endeavor, the patient 
vigilance, the unremitting watchfulness and effort 


80 God’s Great Experiment 

with which the Saint gradually changed his harsh 
and difficult character until he became the model 
of gentleness and sweetness which we know. Here 
was, indeed, a glorious tilling, a happy experiment, 
a most successful farming of the heart, and one can 
picture the reward St. Francis must have received 
from God in heaven, for having so marvelously 
drawn the sweet flowers of Christian charity out of 
the stony infertility of a mind and heart inclined 
by nature to uncharitableness and wrath. 

The lives of many of the other saints tell of 
similar achievements. Some of them were perhaps 
inferior to ourselves in certain natural gifts of 
character, and in the tenderness of their heart and 
the docility of their mind. But they were un¬ 
wearying laborers in the field which God gave them, 
and by dint of constant effort and unremitting 
watchfulness, they succeeded in raising great fruits 
for God, where we perhaps are letting the better 
soil of our own hearts and souls lie fallow and run 
to weeds. 

In the lands of Asia one sees, so travelers tell us, 
examples of the most marvelous cultivation. The 
Chinese, for example, can support whole popula¬ 
tions on fields which in our land would be aban¬ 
doned and let run wild. But the secret of this 
marvelous success is unremitting toil. These tillers 


81 


God 1 s Great Experiment 

go down on their knees to work over every foot 
of earth, and lift and pulverize it with their fingers. 
They apply to the soil every bit of nourishment that 
they can gather, and they work it in well, and 
watch and weed and cultivate until even a barren 
soil grows docile and productive with such unre¬ 
mitting labor. So, too, the great monasteries of 
Europe were often built in wildernesses which the 
holy monks, by endless toil, made to blossom like 
the rose. 

In some such way we must cultivate the soil of 
our hearts. The more barren it seems, the more 
we must work over it. The more stony it is, the 
more we must labor to pick out the stones, pebble 
by pebble. By the practice of the particular examen 
of conscience, by frequent confession and com¬ 
munion, by constant aspirations and the renewing 
of good resolves, we can make the harsh land docile, 
and wring much fruit from the sterile soil. Let 
us, therefore, in moments of discouragement, re¬ 
member that we have all that God wishes us to 
have for His great experiment. He has marked 
out the soil, given us the due nourishment, and pro¬ 
vided moisture and conditions for our trial. We 
need nothing more than what we have, for the great 
Master can suffer nothing to be wanting for the 
successful conduct of His supreme experiment. All 


82 God’s Great Experiment 

we need do is to make good use of what God has 
given us, and to raise proportionate fruits from the 
soil He has entrusted to our care. 

In like manner, when we are tempted to grow 
critical of others and to wonder why they are not 
more virtuous and more pious, let us remember that 
they, too, are working out in their own way God’s 
great experiment. They have their own trials and 
graces, their own natural dispositions and oppor¬ 
tunities. They are to be judged not by your stan¬ 
dards, but according to what they themselves have 
received. It is quite impossible, then, for you to 
pass a just judgment on them, because you cannot 
know the conditions of God’s great experiment with 
their souls. 


PICKING AT PEOPLE 


T HERE is an odious fault, too common among 
the sins of speech, which is named detrac¬ 
tion. The very word is immensely signifi¬ 
cant, for it means taking away, picking off, demolish¬ 
ing bit by bit another’s reputation. It consists in 
tearing down our neighbor’s good name, as it were, 
brick by brick, or stone by stone. It is done, usually, 
by mean little remarks and sly insinuations, or by 
seemingly harmless statements and allusions no one 
of which seems to do much damage, though each of 
them tends to pull away just a little more of the 
good repute and kind esteem enjoyed by the object 
of it and make him just a little less estimable, praise¬ 
worthy or amiable than he was before the sly word 
was uttered or the mean remark let fall. 

There is no ordinarily decent person possessed 
of common self-respect who would not blush to be 
guilty of the habit of detraction. Yet, alas! it is all 
too usual to find even good persons who have let 
themselves slip little by little into a habit of de¬ 
traction. And if this picking at their neighbors’ 

83 


84 Picking at People 

characters is so craftily done and so cunningly 
glossed over as to escape the notice of others and 
even of the detractor himself, it is all the more dan¬ 
gerous. The most effective sort of detraction is the 
kind which does not come into the open, but is dis¬ 
guised under various cloaks of good humor, harmless 
chat or innocent-seeming personalities. 

Were the thing itself not so dark and dangerous 
and so pitiful in its consequence it would be an 
amusing study to trace out and unmask the mani¬ 
fold disguises of detraction, and the shrewd ways 
detractors have of giving, each in characteristic 
fashion, their wicked strokes at other people’s char¬ 
acters. Their approach to their subject and their 
method of delivering the swift, decisive peck which 
takes away so neatly just that desired morsel from 
the victim’s character, reminds one irresistibly of 
fowls about a ruddy apple. Toss them a fine per¬ 
fect fruit and watch them eat it. Each one will 
take only a tiny luscious bit with each peck of its 
greedy beak. But in a very little time the apple is 
all pecked away. 

We are all more or less exposed to this ignoble 
vice of detraction, and, so, it is profitable to study 
its symptoms, not so much to diagnose them in 
others, as to detect them in ourselves. The very 
itch to be talking about other people, and the great 
fondness for conversation which mostly turns on 


85 


Picking at People 

their doings and sayings, is in itself a probable sign 
of danger of detraction. Unless we are exceptional 
persons possessed of that rare and sweet delight in 
praising others and emphasizing their good quali¬ 
ties, our taste is likely to incline to personal re¬ 
marks that have a tang of bitterness in them. To 
speak about others much, and to do it charitably 
and sweetly, is a difficult achievement. The serpent 
of detraction nests in the lush weeds of much talk 
about other people. 

Moreover, it is toward our friends and familiars, 
the people with whom we associate and live, that 
we are most likely to feel this impulse to detraction. 
There seems a perverse instinct in us to disparage 
others at least in little things. Living intimately 
with others we necessarily detect the flaws and follies 
that are in every character. Perhaps it consoles 
us for what we know is amiss in our own selves, to 
roll under our tongue some phrase that points out 
or emphasizes what we think wrong in others. At 
all events, experience and history and all the muses, 
assure us that detraction is one of the most deeply 
rooted and universal temptations of mankind. 

Needless to say, the fact that what we tell of our 
neighbor to his discredit is the truth, and even that 
it is already known to others, is no excuse for us 
in telling it without good reason. Even though it 
is true and known, we should not point it out save 


86 


Picking at People 

for good cause, and our emphasizing it, will make 
others think less of the unhappy object of our de¬ 
traction. We must do unto others as we would 
have them do unto us; and how anxious we are 
that others should overlook our faults, even the 
known ones. Let us be equally merciful ourselves. 

The wicked art of detraction has many profes¬ 
sors, and its technique is various and shrewd. It 
sometimes veils its approach under an assumed com¬ 
passion: “Isn’t it too bad about So-and-So,” the 

story will begin; “he is such a good fellow, but-” 

And with the introduction follows some remark that 
leaves in the hearer’s mind a conviction that So-and- 
So is anything but good. The good we predicated 
of him is indefinite and noncommittal. The evil we 
make quite definite and plain. So the result of our 
remark is to peck away just that bit of the esteem 
our victim had in the mind of the one we are speak¬ 
ing to, and to leave him just that much the poorer 
in his friend’s regard. 

Another method of detraction no less effective, 
is to repeat some remark or opinion of another to 
his discredit, merely as a matter of information of 
course, but with such a manner and intonation as 
leaves it to be understood how foolish the poor thing 
is and how much, in our superior good sense, we 
feel for him. “So-and-So says,” is a characteristic 
introduction to this species of detraction. What we 



87 


Picking at People 

think of what he says, and what our hearer should 
think of it, is conveyed quite definitely by our look 
and intonation. 

Akin to this method is the similar observation 
concerning something which another has done. “Did 
you hear what poor So-and-So did the other day?” 
Poor So-and-So indeed! He will be poorer still, 
so far as reputation for good sense is concerned, be¬ 
fore we have gotten through with him. And a sad 
thing about this method of detraction is, that we 
leave the one to whom we speak so little chance 
for evading it or turning it aside. It is a sort of 
compliment to the other to suppose that he will see 
at once poor So-and-So’s quite obvious foolishness. 
It puts both speaker and listener upon a plane of 
comfortable superiority, from which they look down 
with compassion upon the unmasked folly of the un¬ 
happy So-and-So. 

What is the motive which makes us forever 
anxious to peck a bit at the good esteem of other 
people? Is it enthusiasm for the right? Is it the 
praiseworthy desire that everyone should get his due? 
Is it the eagerness we feel that our neighbors should 
be warned about the faults of others and avoid 
them? Even these worthy ends would be no ex¬ 
cuse for us to dissect and expose the poor little 
human failings that might mercifully escape the no¬ 
tice of others if we were not so eager to point them 


88 Picking at People 

out. We are to do to others as we would like 
others to do to us, and which of us wishes to be 
the object of detraction, to be pecked at by sharp 
and injurious tongues? 

But if our motive is to lessen the object of our 
detraction by ever so little in the esteem of his 
neighbors, what an unworthy object that is, to be 
sure! Who of us is so perfect, so wise, so great 
in himself and so esteemed by others, that his repu¬ 
tation needs to be pecked at to restore it to some 
measure of the truth? At best, our faults are glar¬ 
ing enough in themselves, and there is not too much 
praise and good-will abroad. For us to give our¬ 
selves the pain and the guilt of lessening the good 
repute of others, is an unnecessary as well as unkind 
proceeding. 

Why do we enjoy rolling on our tongue some re¬ 
mark of a disparaging sort about another? Surely, 
it is not our noble selves that like to utter or to 
hear detraction. It is some base, obscure but strong 
impulse of that lower nature which so pestiferously 
besieges us to do unworthy things. Do we feel, 
in the deeps of our littleness, that to pull someone 
down a peg will be to lift ourselves up by just so 
much in the general estimation? It is not so, of 
course. Detraction is a mean trait, which disgusts 
others, though they in their own littleness may take 
some passing and unworthy pleasure in listening to 


89 


Picking at People 

it. But if we are wise, we shall neither take nor 
give that base delight of pecking at other people. 

It is a sorry responsibility this, to be retailing 
the little or greater faults of others, known already 
or unknown. Just as when we praise what is 
worthy, right and good, we become in some sort 
partakers in the merit of it, abettors and seconders of 
the excellences we approve and speak well of; so 
when we reveal the little faults or point out the de¬ 
fects of others, we become sharers in the disedifica- 
tion, harm and scandal our foolish words reveal. 
We redouble, by repeating them, the faults of others, 
and multiply our neighbors’ shortcomings on our 
own foolish lips. What an entirely harmful and 
silly proceeding! As though there were not enough 
fair, worthy, interesting and profitable subjects of 
thought and conversation to occupy whatever time 
we have for conferring with others, instead of using 
those precious moments in raking up defects and tell¬ 
ing of faults, like crows that feed on carrion when 
ripe fruit hangs within reach. 

The result of detraction is exceedingly bad on our 
own characters and dispositions, on the ones who 
hear us, and on the unhappy victims of our picking 
tongues. To ourselves, when we indulge in it, de¬ 
traction brings guilt; regret, if we have a right 
conscience, and, it way be, the duty of reparation. 
It begets in us the ugly habit of seeing the worst in 


90 


Picking at People 

others, and spying even upon their hidden faults, 
which at least should be mercifully left in conceal¬ 
ment. It tends to make us careless about correcting 
our own faults, because we are so busy thinking of 
the faults of others. All in all, it is a wretchedly 
profitless, sinful, foolish investment of our time and 
of the precious gift of speech that was given us for 
such God-like purposes. 

These may seem strong words, but they are not 
too strong to point out in its true folly and mean¬ 
ness this too common and ruinous habit of detract¬ 
ing speech. The next time we feel like holding up 
whether for public amusement or in serious talk 
the defects of some one of our neighbors, let us 
pause a moment before uttering the unkindly speech 
and ask ourselves if we are really willing to be de¬ 
tractors and to take from others that good esteem 
which we are so unwilling to have taken from our¬ 
selves. We say things so lightly sometimes, which 
are freighted with such serious consequences! Not 
by all the effort in the world could we blot out of 
men’s minds the bitter word spoken half in jest 
but which marred a reputation, or gather back again 
the flying phrase which we have thoughtlessly coined 
against another, but which has flown from lip to 
lip and made havoc with a once fair name. 

For our own sake, too, no less than for the sake of 
others, we should desire to be free from this vice of 


91 


Picking at People 

picking at reputations. We should resent extremely 
the accusation that we are habitually inclined to 
say evil of others, a retailer of discreditable bits of 
gossip. Yet such is the weakness of our human na¬ 
ture that we have most of us to exercise some little 
diligence to be quite free at all times from the 
sorry vice of picking at other people. It needs a 
fine, continual charity, a love of others that is uni¬ 
versal and sincere, the keen sorrow for their defects, 
and the deep appreciation of their goodness, that 
only the love of God, and of man for the love of 
God, can engender, to keep us quite completely from 
the dangerous and pitiful pastime of picking at other 
people. 


GOD’-S SILENCE 



T O THE thoughtful mind there are few 
things more amazing in this astonishing uni¬ 
verse than the silence of God. This is God’s 
house, which He has built. The earth and the 
heavens are His handiwork, and with the most 
minute care He regulates each detail of the world. 
Even our own weak senses, unaided by the shrewd 
peerings of science, tell us with- what tremendous 
precision God governs His universe. We can per¬ 
ceive how marvelously the unspeakable multitude 
of creatures that we see about us, the plants and 
flowers and trees, the animals and insects, and man 
himself, the summit and compendium of all God’s 
visible creation, are constantly kept in existence and 
regulated in their action by the omnipotent skill 
and unsleeping diligence of their Master, God. 

But when science, with its wide outlook into the 
endlessly great and the infinitesimally small, reveals 
to us the full sweep of God’s creation, tells us of 
the immeasurably distant stars that sprinkle un- 
thought-of voids of space to the limit of an unim- 

92 


God’s Silence 


93 


aginable creation, and shows as well that there is 
a less within the little, and that the mites we see 
are giants compared to the lesser world of the micro¬ 
scope and the whirling host of atoms; then to our 
vision the universe becomes a bewildering and awful 
sum of greatness and littleness. We then achieve 
some faint realization, if our imaginations are vivid 
and our minds are clear, of the huge complexity, the 
almost infinite machinery, so to say, which God has 
set up in His universe. 

All this wide array of heaven and earth is destined 
for the indwelling of man. He is the apex of the 
universe, the peak of creation, the voice through 
which all this voiceless and soulless wonder praises 
God. On man, therefore, is concentrated the in¬ 
terest and solicitude of his Creator. The fourteen or 
fifteen hundred millions of reasonable creatures who 
swarm on the world are objects of God’s unsleeping 
interest and particular care. 

Yet, while Almighty God is everywhere, all¬ 
present, all-knowing, and all-holy, closer to men than 
their own souls and more intimately acquainted with 
the workings of their hearts than their own con¬ 
science, still through all this huge house of God 
there reigns a wonderful silence. God has ap¬ 
pointed His laws and written them in the human 
heart. Man, by atrocious and manifold sins, dis- 


94 


God’s Silence 


dains His Maker, insults the Lawgiver and uses 
the good gifts of God for wickedness. 

What an awful sum of horror and shame man 
has written through the ages upon this fair world, 
which is destined only to aid him to praise and 
glorify God through faithful service! Age cries out 
to age with dismay at the thoughtlessness, the 
wickedness, the wantonness, of the men of each suc¬ 
ceeding generation. Through it all, God remains 
silent. He has, indeed, spoken thrice to mankind. 
After Adam’s sin He gave that forefather of our 
race the promise of a Redeemer. When He brought 
into being the nation of the Jews, He entrusted to 
them the ancient testament of God with men con¬ 
cerning this promise of the Saviour, and gave by His 
prophets the teaching of the Old Testament. Last, 
by the lips of His Son made Flesh, He spoke to us 
the full and authentic truth which was to set all 
men free unto salvation. But for the rest, God re¬ 
mains silent in His universe. 

There is nothing more impressive than this silence 
of God, ever-present, ever-watching, ever-remem¬ 
bering with an infallible and perfect memory all 
our deeds, yet waiting in silence. The nations rise 
up against His law, and wanton in wickedness and 
sin, and God maintains His silence. The house 
of His world is defiled with wickedness, the years 


God’s Silence 


95 


grow on and bring each one a new weight of re¬ 
tribution—and God remains silent. Crimes cry out 
to Heaven for vengeance; the scream of the op¬ 
pressed splits the skies; the wail of the widow and 
of the orphan ascends to Heaven and God still re¬ 
mains silent. The Church is oppressed and her 
ministers are persecuted. The Sisterhoods are 
driven out from lands, the poor are despoiled of 
their possessions, the young are deprived of their 
faith by Godless education, and the old are led 
astray by manifold and systematic temptations from 
men more powerful for evil than the prince of 
evil himself—and still, God remains silent. The 
good look up to Heaven and groan in spirit, be¬ 
seeching Him for some manifestation that will 
strike terror in the heart of evil-doers and justify 
His Church before the world, and still God remains 
silent. 

Yet, withal, this infinite, all-holy and all- 
powerful Lord is searching the heart of the sinner, 
sees more clearly the wickedness of men than do 
their own consciences, and is utterly aware of all 
that mankind has done to spoil His house, to wreck 
His possessions, to defeat His designs in the world. 
What, then, is the meaning of this tremendous 
silence? What is the significance of Gods delay? 
Why is there no voice on earth and no call from 


96 


God’s Silence 


the heavens? Why is God silent so long while 
His enemies seem to make havoc in His house? Only 
our Faith can give us the true answer. 

To the pagans of old this silence of God was 
most depressing, and clouded all their hope and 
joy. They grew to think that God had no longer 
an interest in His w T orld and that, having made 
this marvelous earth and set it spinning in the 
grooves of space, He had forgotten us and left 
human destinies to work themselves out in blind 
confusion, careless of those whom He had made. 
They pictured to themselves a gloomy and dim 
hereafter, where the shades of men should mope in 
shadow in the underworld, only stirred to life by 
the blood of the offerings that trickled down and 
momentarily fed them to consciousness. But we, 
who are Christians, have in this very silence of God 
a motive both for holy fear and holy hope. God is 
silent because He is waiting for the consummation 
to come, which shall restore all things according to 
His will and glory. 

God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and neither 
are His ways our ways. When He made the world, 
He knew most perfectly all things which would 
come to pass, either through the action of inevitable 
forces of nature, or from the free will of men. The 
world is God’s great experiment, where He tries 
the souls of men to see whether they will serve and 


God’s Silence 


97 


love Him, or abandon and defy Him. All this huge 
earth, spinning on in its manifold changes, with all 
the interlacing and interacting of the affairs and 
wills of men, is but the course of God’s providence, 
in which with unerring skill and perfect power He 
is suffering His elect to work out their salvation, 
and is proving the souls of all mankind so that they 
may themselves write out their own eternal destiny. 

Therefore it is, that God is silent. He is silent 
as the father is silent who has given his command 
and waits for his son to obey it. He is silent as the 
lawgiver is silent who, having clearly enunciated 
his will and pleasure, waits to see whether those to 
whom it is addressed will obey and receive reward, 
or disobey and meet inevitable punishment. The 
silence of God is not the silence of indifference nor 
of forgetfulness, nor of contempt, nor of weariness. 
It is the silence of love, of tenderness, of expectancy, 
of interest. God waits to see how the world will 
respond to His commands—who will serve Him and 
who defy Him, who shall use the gifts that He gives, 
to their own salvation, or who shall turn them to 
condemnation and to ruin. 

It is needful in the designs of God, that this great 
silence should brood over the world, for it is God’s 
purpose to win our hearts’ allegiance through our 
own free choice; not through fear only, but through 
love. Pondering on the silence of God, we should 


98 


God’s Silence 


become more keen to attend to and to heed those 
things which God’s voice has already spoken. The 
voice of the Church rings through the world, 
weighted with the authority of God Himself: a 
loud call in the ears of the nations. The voice of 
our conscience sounds within us, constantly exhort¬ 
ing and admonishing, encouraging and restraining, 
teaching us the ways of God. The voices of prudent 
and wise teachers proclaim the wonders of God’s 
love and the majesty of His power; the voice of our 
own body and soul cry out to us of God’s goodness 
and providence. 

These things all call to our hearts to serve God 
and to love Him. The day approaches when the 
time which God has measured for us shall have run 
out, and we shall stand at the vestibule of eternity in 
the presence of our Creator. Then we shall hear His 
voice. At that moment the silence of God will be 
over. His time of waiting will have been accom¬ 
plished. We shall have answered, by our deeds, this 
all-important question, “Wilt thou love Me and wilt 
thou serve Me?” and with ecstatic joy and with im¬ 
mense relief and with a peace that no one can under¬ 
stand, may we hear the voice of Our Saviour, break¬ 
ing the silence, with those appointed and predestined 
words which shall begin for us the unspeakable joys 
of heaven: “Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess 
you the kingdom prepared for you from the foun- 


God’s Silence 


99 


dation of the world.” For it is in such manner and 
on such occasion that God has decreed to break for 
us the momentous silence which now is brooding in 
His house of the world. 


CURING OUR HABITS 


I T IS odd, isn’t it, how a habit can resist a reso¬ 
lution. Match them together, and the habit 
will win, nearly every time. Yet a resolution 
is such a strong, vigorous, earnest act of the sovereign 
will; and a habit seems such a vague, abstract and 
dormant entity. How is it, that in the experience 
of all of us, habit nearly always, in the long run, 
prevails over our strongest resolutions? For that it 
does, who will not sorrowfully acknowledge? 
There, perhaps, is that bad temper of yours. (No 
offense, for most of us mortals suffer at times from 
one or another variety of bad temper.) It has 
grown with you in your growth, and got to be a 
second nature. Given the occasion, you feel the old 
heat rising and the glow of indignation kindling as 
before. There you go again, saying what you hadn’t 
intended and didn’t really mean, and hurting other 
people’s feelings and generally disgracing yourself 
until the fit is over. Then, the habit having tri¬ 
umphantly reasserted its sway, which you thought 
and hoped you had broken once and for all by that 

100 


101 


Curing Our Habits 

last very sincere and honest resolution never to get 
vexed again, the choler dies away, your disposition 
recovers its accustomed sweetness, and you begin 
again to wonder sadly what was the matter with 
you that you flew off the handle after so earnestly 
resolving not to. 

We pull ourselves together! Well! At least 
that is positively the last time. This thing has gone 
far enough, and we are becoming a nuisance. We 
elaborate a new resolution. It is specific and deter¬ 
mined. As advised, we go into details, and foresee 
the occasions when we may be tempted to get angry, 
and we make up our minds not to—never again! 
We also pray, not that such a perfectly good reso¬ 
lution seems to need so very much prayer to make 
it effective, but because that is also what we have 
been recommended. Then, with the warm glow of 
anticipated virtue all over us, we sally forth non¬ 
chalantly into our accustomed haunts, feeling that 
this time at least we have worked up a resolution 
that will last, and have put that pestiferous habit of 
getting angry, down for good, and fortified ourselves 
and our temper against almost any provocation. 

Alas! what commonly happens? A little rub— 
somebody just scratches the surface of our adaman¬ 
tine resolution, and it shatters to fragments. Out 
pops temper again. In half an hour we have gone 
through the same ridiculous proceeding of getting 


102 Curing Our Habits 

mad, growing sad, and making another resolution. 
Yet, on examining our resolve with all the serious 
introspection we can muster, we certainly perceive 
that it was an entirely sincere and pretty strong re¬ 
solve. We were absolutely determined to break oft 
that habit, and we even foresaw perhaps the very 
occasion which, when encountered, was the undoing 
of us. What, then, is the matter? Can we not 
break our bad habits? Or is it an illusion that we 
really mean not to yield to them again? 

Changing the name of the failing, this is the his¬ 
tory of every struggle against bad habits that was 
ever waged since the w r orld began, save in those 
rare and altogether exceptional cases where divine 
grace took the place of nature and rooted out a bad 
habit all of a sudden, or where one prodigious act 
of the will was so exceptionally strong that it did 
reverse the effect of many preceding actions and turn 
the habit out of doors with a single tremendous 
effort. Barring these unusual experiences, however, 
all mankind, in every age, will but repeat the story 
we have just told of struggle, resolve and failure in 
the battle between will and habit, even where the 
persevering will does finally conquer in the end. 
What, then, is the matter with us? Is not our will 
as strong as consciousness declares? Above all, is 
there no use resolving? 

We shall be able to answer all these important 


103 


Curing Our Habits 

and vexatious questions for ourselves if we go a bit 
deeper into the nature of habits, and think how they 
are formed and by what laws they are ruled. Far 
from discouraging us from trying to cure our bad 
habits and to cultivate good ones, the knowledge 
will be a guide and encouragement in our lifelong 
battle with ourselves. What, then, is a habit, and 
what are its laws of action? To begin with, there 
is a proneness in us to do again what we have done 
many times before. “How use doth breed a habit 
in a man!” cried Valentine in “The Two Gentle¬ 
man of Verona,” and we must often have reechoed 
his observation. By merely repeating the same mode 
of action it becomes a part of our very self to in¬ 
cline to do the same thing again, and, acquiring as 
we do a whole series of these ways of acting, they 
become for us a second nature, which fits us like a 
garment and clings to us as though it were part of 
our own flesh and souls. Our ways of speaking, 
curiously reflect this conviction that our habits are 
our very dress and vesture. “Habit,” meaning a 
wonted way of acting and “habit,” meaning dress, 
come from the identical root of language, and so 
do “custom” and “costume” in similar meanings. 

Every time we act, we acquire a disposition to re¬ 
peat the action; and this disposition, often yielded 
to, hardens into habit, a proneness and inclination 
to act in the same way again when similar circum- 


104 Curing Our Habits 

stances arise. “By habit,” says Sully in his Psychol- 
ogy, “we mean a fixed disposition to do a thing and 
a facility in doing it, the result of numerous repe¬ 
titions of the action.” This is as true of good actions 
as of bad ones, of the body as of the soul. When 
we master ourselves, we acquire a disposition to and 
habit of self-control; when we pray, we cultivate 
the habit of prayer; when we are idle, we get habits 
of idleness; and when we perform many acts of 
kindness, we grow habitually kind. 

It is easy enough to see the providential purpose 
of this facility of our human nature for forming 
habits, fixed and customary ways of acting. With¬ 
out it we should have no stability in our acts or our 
lives. It gives a man assurance of persevering in 
good, just as it punishes him with an ingrained re¬ 
tribution for yielding to evil. We are fickle enough 
as it is, but without habits to steady us, we should 
be badly off indeed. What confidence could a man 
have that tomorrow, on some slight whim, or sud¬ 
den impulse, or importunate temptation, he would 
not madly abandon all the good ways he had been 
keeping for fifty years, and rush off into some folly 
that his sober senses would abhor, if the strong chain 
of habit did not hold him at anchor to the things he 
had deliberately chosen to tie to. What we call a 
good character, a firm disposition, a noble nature, is 
in fact dependent on a whole fabric of good habits 


105 


Curing Our Habits 

that have been built up by repeated actions of the 
virtues to which they incline. On the other hand, 
as we have hinted, bad habits are a swift and fitting 
retribution for the doing of bad deeds. With every 
yielding to sin or to some ill impulse, there is 
strengthened in a man the corresponding habit; and, 
so, a bad character is in fact the direct consequence 
and punishment of bad actions which begot the hab¬ 
its that go to make up the evil character. 

But where is the consolation and the help in these 
reflections, toward making our good resolutions 
overcome our bad habits? Just in this, that they 
point out the effective means for rooting them out 
and implanting the contrary virtues. A bad habit 
must be overcome by reversing the process by which 
it was created. A good habit must be implanted by 
the very means by which the bad habit was rooted 
out. What process and what means is this? The 
means of repeated and deliberate actions, which are 
the result of repeated and strong resolutions, per¬ 
sistently acted on and perseveringly renewed. 

Let us take, first of all, the process of rooting out 
a bad habit. Recur for instance to the example 
which we have already used, the bad habit of get¬ 
ting angry. What we say of this may with ap¬ 
propriate variations be applied to the getting rid of 
any bad habit whatsoever. We may as well make 
up our mind at the start, that the changing of a 


106 Curing Our Habits 

habit is not to be the affair of a few days. If we 
have an extraordinarily strong will, the battle will 
be briefer. But no one need ordinarily expect that 
a fat and comfortable habit, which has been years in 
growing and is twined in with all the fibers of our 
nature, is to give up meekly and be bundled out of 
doors on the first trial. It took a long time to root 
it so firmly; it will take correspondingly long, most 
probably, to uproot it. We begin with a good reso¬ 
lution. That is to say, we honestly make up our 
mind to get rid of the bad habit of getting angry, 
and to take the necessary means thereto. We 
strengthen this resolution by dwelling on the motives 
which prompted it. The foolishness, the shameful¬ 
ness, the danger of yielding to anger. The more 
thoroughly we realize these motives and remember 
them, the more effective our resolution is likely to 
be. Then we try to foresee the occasions which will 
most likely tempt us to lose our temper, conjecturing 
them from what we have experienced in the past. 
Be quite sure that you have an honest and full de¬ 
termination to reform. Without this, all subsequent 
operations will fail. It is easy to persuade ourselves 
that we have really formed a good resolution, when 
in fact we have only the wish to form one. 

Well, then, after the sincere resolve has been 
formed, please take notice, and not in the mere form¬ 
ing of it, the true work begins, and it consists in per- 


107 


Curing Our Habits 

forming action after action against the old habit, 
and, better still, in the direction of the contrary vir¬ 
tue. You are provoked. You begin to get hot all 
over. Warm words come to your lips. You are 
just about to boil over again. What ho! Now is 
the time to begin breaking that habit in good earn¬ 
est. You recall that honest resolution. You say 
a short, strong prayer for aid. Then you deliberately 
crush down that rising resentment, you hold in the 
bitter word, you force yourself to go away, count a 
hundred, swallow a glass of water—anything but 
yield to that old passion and habit of anger. The 
fit passes. You have kept your resolution for once 
at least. You did not yield to the habit that time. 

What is the consequence? Not only that single 
meritorious victory, that success in self-control where 
you have so often failed before, but a distinct and 
definite weakening of the habit of getting angry. 
You have less of the bad habit than you had be¬ 
fore. You have made a beginning in acquiring the 
contrary habit of gentleness, meekness and self- 
control. Perhaps the next time you are tempted, 
you may yield and become thoroughly angry before 
you remember your resolution. But you pull up, and 
try to calm yourself, and manage somehow not to 
yield entirely to anger. Just so much more of the 
habit has been conquered. By the repetition of such 
victories, unremittingly persevered in, the habit will 


108 Curing Our Habits 

at last be broken, demolished, overcome, and a good 
custom put in its place. Every time you resist, it 
is so much the more weakened. Every act against 
it destroys its dominion by so much the more. 

It is the same way with the cultivation of virtues; 
first a good, well-motived, prayerful resolution, then 
act after act of the good habit we desire. At first 
the acts may be hard, awkward, painful even, and 
may seem to be having no effect upon our soul. 
But perseverance will bring more and more ease and 
readiness in the performance of the good action, and 
sooner or later we shall find that our character is 
enriched by the acquisition of a new virtue, firmly 
planted and flowering into noble deeds. Ah, if all 
of us, and particularly the young, whose characters 
are just forming, would only realize that every un¬ 
worthy deed is making an evil nature for us, and 
every good one building up a holy virtue in our 
souls, how careful we would be about the begin¬ 
nings. We are the builders of our own characters 
and dispositions, and it is done, for good or evil, 
not by our wishes or even our worthy resolutions, 
but by the habit-forming efficacy of every conscious 
and deliberate act that we perform. 


A SIGNIFICANT WORD 


A VERY great deal is said nowadays, and 
very well said too, concerning various apos- 
tolates. “Lay Apostolate” is one of the most 
used of terms, and the general idea conveyed by this 
expression is made particular in the titles of a very 
host of lay apostolates. There is the apostolate of 
the press, the apostolate of catechetical instruction, 
the apostolate of social service, the apostolate of 
speech, of good example, of lecture courses, of sacred 
art, of apologetics, of the drama, and so on through 
a whole series of very much needed and truly apos¬ 
tolic spheres of action for the’laity. Much is said 
of the need of all these things, and many excellent 
reasons are given why all good Catholics should en¬ 
list in at least one of these holy spheres of effort. 
But perhaps the most moving reasons and the most 
cogent arguments for the lay apostolate may be 
found in a consideration of the meaning of the term 
itself. 

The word “apostle/’ as everyone knows who has 
studied catechism, means a messenger. An apostle, 

109 


110 A Significant Word 

in general, is one who is sent out to carry some tid¬ 
ings. The title, apostle, was therefore given to those 
twelve lowly men whom Christ chose to be the mes¬ 
sengers or bearers forth of the good tidings of sal¬ 
vation, the carriers of His Gospel in His name to all 
mankind. Because the Twelve were called apostles, 
the terms apostolic and apostolate have got a specially 
sacred meaning in the Catholic Church. Those 
things are called apostolic, which have to do with 
the persons of the apostles or their office or mission, 
and whatever concerns the carrying abroad of their 
Gospel or the bringing of men to the Faith of Christ, 
is therefore styled apostolic. Following out the com¬ 
mands of their Lord, the Twelve instructed and sent 
forth others whom they laid their hands on and 
ordained, some to be full successors of the apostles, 
the bishops, others to be ministers of the sacraments 
and teachers of the people, yet not with all the pow¬ 
ers of bishops; and these latter are priests. Both 
the bishops and the priests have an apostolic mission 
and office, the priests in part, the bishops in its ful¬ 
ness, and it is their special duty to be messengers of 
Christ and carry His good tidings, His Gospel, to 
the peoples of the earth. 

These good tidings of Christ are the tidings of 
the world’s salvation, and His message is the message 
of eternal life. Christ came on earth to accomplish 
the most sublime of all works, the salvation of souls. 


A Significant fVord 111 

He is the world’s Redeemer and His holy Faith 
and the teachings of His Church, which His apostles 
and their delegates carry abroad, are designed to save 
the souls of mankind. The apostolic ministry, the 
ministry, that is, of the bishops and priests of the 
Church, is the service of saving souls. It is the pro¬ 
fession of these men, ordained and consecrated to 
carry on the work of Christ, that they be ever at 
work for the salvation of souls. Through them, 
in the ordinary providence of God, the members of 
the human race are to be baptized, taught the word 
of God and brought to serve Him faithfully. They 
and they alone have the power to administer the 
sacraments of Penance, Extreme Unction, Con¬ 
firmation, Holy Orders. They only can celebrate 
the august sacrifice of the Mass, and be the Church’s 
witnesses of Matrimony. In so far then, their 
apostolic ministry can be shared with no one outside 
the holy order of the priesthood. These mighty 
means for the saving of souls are in the hands of 
those ordained to be the ministers of Christ. 

But besides these specific and distinctive functions 
of the apostolic ministry, there is a world of ways 
in which Christ’s message may be brought to men, 
the salvation of souls labored for and achieved, and 
thus the work of the apostles carried on in the world. 
Not only by the direct administration of the sacra¬ 
ments, but in every manner in which the teaching 


112 A Significant Word 

of our Saviour can be brought home to men, their 
hearts turned to His law and their souls made clean 
and holy, one may do the work of the apostles. Be¬ 
sides the apostolate of priests, therefore, there have 
arisen in the Church manifold other apostolates 
which mightily help to the carrying forth of Christ’s 
message and the saving of souls. 

Foremost among these is, of course, the apostolate 
of the life of religion, whereby many hundreds of 
thousands of Catholic men and women have conse¬ 
crated their whole being to God’s service and to the 
salvation of souls by taking the three vows of pov¬ 
erty, chastity and obedience, crucifying in their 
hearts the concupiscence of the flesh, the concu¬ 
piscence of the eyes and the pride of life, and giving 
their whole lifetime to the spreading of Christ’s mes¬ 
sage, by prayer, by personal example and by their 
incessant labor for the salvation and sanctification 
of those who come within their influence. It is im¬ 
possible to estimate the vast extent and holy efficacy 
of this apostolate in the religious life. Religious 
communities have in our day achieved once more 
almost the fervor of the apostolic days. The de¬ 
voted lives of countless Catholic men and women 
who, in self-sacrifice and self-immolation, are follow¬ 
ing the footsteps of Christ and preaching His doc¬ 
trine by example and by teaching, have an efficacy 


A Significant IVord 113 

to spread the kingdom of Christ in the world and to 
intensify the Christian life on earth which only 

r 

heaven can comprehend. How powerfully the re¬ 
ligious Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods cooperate with 
the work of priests and the salvation of souls by 
their teaching in Catholic schools, ministering in 
hospitals and institutions of mercy, caring for the 
widow, the orphan and the destitute aged, helping 
the cause of Catholic literature, visiting the poor, 
and in a thousand zealous works widening the king¬ 
dom of God among men, no earthly intelligence can 
estimate. The apostolate of the religious life is in 
itself a moral miracle and one of the chief glories 
of the Church of Christ. 

But outside the circle of those messengers of Christ 
who are either ordained to His service in the priest¬ 
hood or dedicated to it in the religious life, there is 
a still vaster circle of apostles, members of the laity, 
living in the world without vows or special obliga¬ 
tion, yet wdio have their own place in the providen¬ 
tial system which God has raised up to spread the 
teaching of Christ, and whose apostolate is of ever- 
increasing importance in the times in which we are. 
They, too, these ordinary Catholic men and women, 
have a definite duty and a special part in the spread¬ 
ing of the good message of salvation. They are 
meant to take their share in passing on to others that 


114 A Significant Word 

truth of Christ which they have received not for 
their own good alone, but that it may be spread 
through the entire world. 

Of the existence of the lay apostolate as a part 
of the providential activities of the Church, and of 
its extreme importance just in this present age, who 
is there that can doubt? It is scarcely possible 
that the priest can effectively reach and speak to all 
the men and women of this generation who need 
still to be brought to the knowledge of the Faith of 
Christ and led into the holy ways of Catholic prac¬ 
tice. Multitudes outside the Church will never go 
to hear a priest, will never be brought into any 
touch with Catholic teaching unless it be through 
good example, the tactful words, or the prudent 
action of some member of the Catholic laity. It 
would be vain to expect these people to come to 
Catholic churches, to call on the priest at his house, 
to go themselves in search of Catholic literature. 
They have no idea of the true character of the 
Church, no curiosity, it may be, to inquire concern¬ 
ing her teaching. They are simply indifferent or 
hostile to whatever is Catholic, and if they think of 
the Catholic Church at all, it is with uncomprehend¬ 
ing wonder that what they consider an obsolete in¬ 
stitution should succeed in perpetuating itself in our 
progressive day, or that sensible persons should con- 


A Significant Word 115 

tinue members or what they think so timeworn and 
antiquated a form of belief. 

Who can approach these people, can give them 
at least a doubt about the correctness of their own 
vague ideas of the Catholic Church, can set them 
studying Catholic belief, get them to realize some¬ 
thing of the beauty, strength and holiness of the 
Spouse of Christ, persuade them to make the first 
difficult steps toward conversion? Who but our 
fervent, effective, fearless lay apostles will be able 
to meet them in the ordinary circumstances of life, 
accost them with friendliness, gain their confidence 
by the strong goodness of Catholic principle, which 
has an indescribable power of winning esteem and 
trust. Who but they can put them into the humor 
and give them the means of getting that knowledge 
of the Church wffiich will be the prelude to their 
act of faith, and the means of bringing them to the 
extreme happiness here and hereafter which mem¬ 
bership in the true Church will win for them? 

It is quite astounding how little some, even among 
the devout faithful, seem to realize this solemn office 
laid upon them of leading others to the knowledge 
of that Faith which they themselves prize so highly, 
and in whose saving and consoling doctrine they so 
much rejoice. In their own lives their Faith is 
everything. Its light illumines every step they take; 


116 A Significant Word 

its strength carries them over weary ways and 
through distressful places. They could not conceive 
of a life without the Blessed Sacrament, deprived 
of the consolation and cleansing of sacramental 
penance, orphaned of the Blessed Mother Mary, be¬ 
reaved of the sweet intercession and communion of 
the Saints of God. Oh, why do they not realize, 
these pious but too self-centered, too little-zealous 
Catholics, that the same immense blessings in which 
they so much delight, are meant as well for every¬ 
one else to whom their influence can bring the sav¬ 
ing Faith of Christ? Not for themselves alone are 
all these good gifts given, but for all the world. 
The charity that covers a multitude of sins should 
be fruitful in them of countless deeds of the lay 
apostolate. They must do unto others in this regard 
also, what they would that others should do unto 
them. Were they themselves deprived of the Faith, 
ignorant of its doctrines, wandering from the truth, 
how eagerly they would wish to have someone come 
to them and bring them the good tidings of great 
joy! Shall they, therefore, be content to keep to 
themselves the Faith they have received, or shall 
they not rather spread it abroad by every means of 
the lay apostolate, which they can find ready to their 
hand ? 

Through the great neglect of the opportunities of 


117 


A Significant Word 

the lay apostolate, how much glory is lost to God, 
how much good to souls, how much merit to those 
who might exercise this priceless office of bringing 
the truth to darkened minds and hearts! On the 
other hand, what strange shifts Divine Providence 
has to use, according to our poor imperfect way of 
speaking, to bring to the light those chosen souls 
who are to receive the grace of conversion! Some 
time ago we were speaking to a traveler from one 
of the small northern nations. There were few 
Catholics in his country, yet he was a convert and 
a student for the priesthood. 

“How did you come to learn,” we said, “of the 
truth of the Catholic Faith?” 

“I was a commercial traveler,” he answered, “and 
in my journeying I picked up a book which vehe¬ 
mently attacked the Catholic Church. It interested 
me to learn something more of an institution which 
seemed to arouse such intense antagonism. After 
much difficulty, for it was hard to meet any Catho¬ 
lics in that country, I succeeded in making the ac¬ 
quaintance of a priest, who gave me some Catholic 
books to read. My eyes were opened and I joyfully 
entered the Church.” 

Another convert, professor in a great American 
University, told us not long ago that he had been 
led to study the Catholic Faith when he was a stu- 


118 A Significant Word 

dent, because of the violent attacks which one of the 
professors thought fit to make upon the Catholic 
Church. 

“He abused the Church so roundly,” said this con¬ 
vert, “that I thought it worth while to look into 
an organization which could excite so violent a 
hatred.” 

He too, like the other convert, was besieged by 
the truth, and surrendered. 

If even the attacks of its enemies are efficacious to 
make conversions to the Church, what marvelous 
results might one expect from the efforts of its 
friends! If the grace of God is so ready to flow 
even through tortuous channels, how copiously and 
in what mighty streams would it not pour into the 
souls of men, if only those who are called to works 
of the lay apostolate were keen to do their duty. 

Now, one must say it in sadness, too many of the 
Catholic faithful are quite neglectful of their great 
opportunity and solemn charge to be apostles and 
spread the Faith, freely giving what they have so 
freely received. It is hard for non-Catholics to find 
the truth. It is hard for inquirers to meet among 
the ranks of the laity willing teachers who will pre¬ 
pare the way for the work of the priests by acting as 
intermediaries between the minister of God and 
these starving souls. Were every Catholic to make 
but one conversion in a year, and were these con- 


119 


A Significant Word 

verts in turn to make each year another conversion, 
it would be only a very short time before the greater 
part of our nation would be Catholic. Does this 
seem too vast a good to be looked forward to? If 
all the faithful realized their power and were all 
zealous to do their part in the lay apostolate, no such 
results of conversion would be too vast to be ex¬ 
pected from so sublime a harmony of effort in the 
cause of Christ! 



WASTED RICHES 

I T NEEDS a conscious effort for us to see life 
as God sees it, and to realize the eternal values 
of things. We are all enmeshed and sur¬ 
rounded by worldly principles, worldly views and 
earthly and temporal interests, and the soul has to 
struggle to shake off these human and natural pre¬ 
conceptions in order to gain a height where she can 
see life in its real perspective, and realize the value 
of things as they are in the eyes of God. One of 
our griefs and regrets in purgatory will, doubtless, 
be the wasting of so many spiritual riches, which, 
when they came, we did not appreciate, and which 
we let slip because we did not realize their value in 
the eyes of God. One of our surprises in heaven 
will be to see the preciousness and the holiness of 
many an earthly opportunity which, when it came, 
we scarcely regarded, or which we seized upon, it 
may be, half-listlessly and without realizing at all 
the vast effect that it was to have on our eternity 
in heaven. 

Life, looked at with natural eyes, is a haphazard 

120 



Wasted Riches 


121 


thing, a constant succession of unforseeable events, 
many of them out of our control. In youth, its 
various chances seemed delightful and interesting, 
but its vicissitudes pall upon us until in old age the 
natural man sees life as a weariness and a sorrow. 
The sayings of the poets and the moralizing of phil¬ 
osophers assure us that the promises of earth are 
delusive, that what seems to be joy and gladness is 
in truth only a little removed from grief and tears. 
But looked at with an understanding eye and from 
the supernatural viewpoint, our life is one tissue of 
amazing possibilities, a succession of glorious oppor¬ 
tunities to mount higher and higher in the kingdom 
of heaven. 

There is, let us say once more, nothing in our 
life which is left to chance by God’s all-wise and 
all-loving providence. Every incident that comes to 
us, every experience that we meet in our way, every 
joy and sorrow, every trial and consolation, the 
wickedness of the evil and the kindness and tender¬ 
ness of the good, riches and poverty, health and sick¬ 
ness, pain and pleasure—all these things are woven 
into our days with consummate skill by the infinite 
Artificer of our lives. In God’s plan and de¬ 
sign nothing is meaningless, nothing purposeless. 
All that He allows to happen to us, is meant as a 
priceless opportunity of pleasing Him, serving His 


122 Wasted Riches 

Divine Majesty, and so gaining merit in time and 
glory in eternity. 

This view of life changes the whole aspect of our 
days. The events which seem to us humdrum, weari¬ 
some and trying, are each one of them a door into 
a glorious eternity. The moments which pass so 
swiftly and lightly and seem so insignificant in them¬ 
selves, are each a golden token wherewith we may 
buy more of the kingdom of heaven. The trials 
which test us so severely, and the sorrows which 
sometimes seem keen enough to tear body and soul 
apart, are measured out to us with the greatest pre¬ 
cision by God, and are suited to our special powers 
and to the exact degree of glory which God wills 
that we shall give Him by enduring them. Noth¬ 
ing in our lives, whether pleasant or painful, whether 
seemingly good or evil, but is intended by God to 
test us, to give exercise to the glorious faculties 
which He has given us, and to prepare us for a 
higher place in His kingdom for eternity. 

Therefore, each trial and difficulty and pain and 
sorrow, each task that we find set us, each oppor¬ 
tunity of suffering or doing for the love of God, 
is in truth the most precious opportunity, the most 
inestimable riches thrown in our way by Providence. 
When affairs vex us, or when friends try us, or 
enemies persecute us, or sickness comes, or want, or 
pain, or any other of the occasions in which we can 


Wasted Riches 


123 


specially serve God or show resignation to His will, 
we should receive them as celestial visitors and seize 
with eagerness from their hands those heavenly 
riches which will endure for all eternity. If we 
could only realize the truth of this saying, that unto 
those who love God all things work together unto 
good, and could make full profit from the inestim¬ 
able riches which God so constantly throws into 
our hands! But we find it so difficult to realize 
God’s overruling providence and to understand how 
His love disposes all things for our merit and sal¬ 
vation. 

Though we believe that our Father in heaven 
suffers nothing to pass unheeded, and mightily over¬ 
rules all that comes to us, we do not realize the 
consequences of this conviction. Since God is all 
goodness and all love, since He is all wisdom and 
all power, it follows that in everything He must 
intend His own glory and our greater good. No 
slightest incident or circumstance of our lives but 
comes to us directly from our Father in heaven, and 
is intended and allowed and disposed by His provi¬ 
dence so as to help us to serve Him and to give us 
an opportunity of gaining everlasting riches. We 
believe all this, but our belief has sometimes a 
scarcely perceptible fruit of realization with scarcely 
the faintest impression upon our lives. 

There is an interesting incident in the life of the 


124 


JVasted Riches 


venerable Bishop Flaget of Kentucky, which illus¬ 
trates this point in rather an amusing way. The 
Bishop, in those pioneer days, acted also as parish 
priest of the Cathedral. There was at that time a 
very active member of the congregation, a lady who 
made it her joy to serve the Bishop by sewing for 
the altar. She was always ready to prepare vest¬ 
ments and albs and amices and whatever else might 
be needed for the Holy Sacrifice. Now this good 
dame had a sincere wish to become more holy, and 
was extremely interested in the lives of the saints, 
which she read whenever she had a moment’s leisure. 
One day, when the Bishop called her to give her 
some linen for albs, she took occasion, since he was 
her spiritual director, to make a gentle complaint. 

“Bishop,” said she, “why don’t you ever try me?” 

“Why,” said the Bishop, “just what do you 
mean?” 

“Well,” said she, “I have noticed in the lives of 
the saints that their spiritual directors always tried 
them, gave them something difficult to do, or tested 
their virtue by some kind of hardship. And here I 
have been going to confession to you and living un¬ 
der your spiritual direction for years and you have 
never tried me at all. Try me, Bishop, because I 
want to become a saint.” 

The Bishop smiled but said nothing. Sometime 
later the good lady appeared again with four beau- 


Was ted R iches 


125 


tiful albs, exquisitely sewed and in which she had 
used up with skilful economy every bit of the linen 
that had been given her. She was proud of the 
work and expected to receive the usual gentle com¬ 
mendation. But to her surprise and indignation the 
Bishop looked suspiciously first at the albs and then 
at her. 

“Now, Mrs.——, how much linen did I give 
you?” he asked. 

The good lady bridled with indignation. 

“Why, Bishop,” said she, “what do you mean? 
Do you think that I would steal your linen? You 
gave me just exactly enough for those four albs, 
and every scrap you gave is there, and it is a won¬ 
der I could make them at all with so little. The 
idea—I never was accused of being a thief before 
in my life.” 

So she continued for some moments growing in 
indignation and in eloquence, when, in the midst 
of her crescendo, the Bishop suddenly interposes. 
Speaking in a feminine tone and repeating her own 
former words, he said: “Bishop, why don’t you 
ever try me?” 

The good lady stopped short. “Why, Bishop,” 
said she, “was that a trial?” 

“Of course it was a trial,” said the Bishop. “Do 
you suppose I would ever accuse you of stealing 
altar linen?” 



126 


Wasted Riches 


“Well,” said the good lady, “all right, then, if 
it. was only a trial. But why in the world didn’t you 
tell me?” . : 

We are all of us in pretty much the same attitude 
of mind toward God’s loving providence as was this 
good lady toward her spiritual director. We are 
exceedingly willing to be tried, but we should like 
to be told beforehand that it is a trial—forgetting 
that our whole life is one continual trial, and that 
in all the days of our sojourn on earth God, our 
Father, is doing precisely what the good Bishop did 
at the request of his penitent. He hides His ten¬ 
derness, He conceals from us sometimes His infinite 
solicitude, He assumes a severe appearance and hurts 
us with suffering and sorrow, but it is all only a 
trial. Behind that severe countenance of things, be¬ 
hind the hard outlines of our life, there is always 
the heart of our Father in heaven, full of tender¬ 
ness, the infinite and essential love, who is trying 
us, gently and skilfully, but strongly and earnestly, 
so as to bring out the best that is in our nature and 
give us chance after chance of winning great glory 
for the world to come. 

Oh, how exceedingly foolish and vain and ig¬ 
norant we are, to suffer so many opportunities for 
heavenly riches to slip through our hands for lack 
of realization of the purpose of our heavenly Father! 
How we shall regret, when life is over and our 


Wasted Riches 


127 


judgment comes, the many inestimable opportuni¬ 
ties that we have let pass by us and have wasted, 
because we did not realize their preciousness for 
the kingdom of heaven. We should, each one, with 
immense earnestness and unremitting diligence, set 
ourselves to look out for these chances of merit, to 
sift out from the sands of our days the golden par¬ 
ticles of mortification, of suffering, of effort, of 
prayer, which will be for us an increase of ever¬ 
lasting glory in heaven. We should look at each 
moment as it comes, as a divine messenger bearing 
in its hands an opportunity. If the gift seems harsh 
and rugged, if pain comes to us, or insult, or cal¬ 
umny, or the harshness of friends, or the persecution 
of enemies, or if our own heart tries us, or anxieties 
oppress, or sickness afflicts us, we should rejoice in 
all these things, offering them to God, realizing how 
great is their preciousness for heaven. For our en¬ 
durance of these things with love, is the measure 
of our glory hereafter. Let us waste nothing of 
these great riches offered us by God’s provident love. 


ON LOOKING FORWARD 


I T IS our human way to be always looking for¬ 
ward. Happiness and joy are seldom in the 
“now,” but often in the “soon to be.” We 
comfort ourselves for the dreariness or pain of the 
present moment, by anticipating a better day, and 
compensate ourselves for the present bankruptcy of 
consolation by drawing drafts on our future income 
of peace and of delight. “There will come a better 
time!” We say to ourselves, only half realizing, 
perhaps, our own mental processes: “This sorrow 
also will pass away. These clouds will part, and 
soon there will be sunny weather.” So present 
griefs and trials become bearable because they lead 
to joy. 

It is a harmless manner of seeking comfort, and 
it is based on a great truth. In this world, we 
are creatures of change. Time runs on with us 
irresistibly, and by no effort of ours can we check 
or even hinder his pace. The joys, the griefs of 
life alike are passing. The present moment may be 
very dear to us, but by no striving can we hold it 

128 


On Looking Forward 129 

one instant more. It may be full of pain, put the 
pain is likewise fleeting, as fleeting as the pleasure 
that we would like to keep. 

So it is natural, and in a sense it is right for us 
to look to the future as a solace for the present, a 
refuge from the cares and sorrows that vex us now. 
At least these especial griefs will soon have left us. 
They may give place to still other sorrows, but they 
will themselves depart. Every new day, with its 
new sheaf of joys, its new burden of cares, lends 
point to this reflection. All things are passing, and 
so likewise are our distresses. Only wait a while, 
and time will carry away pain and pleasure together. 

Put in such a way, there are indeed some shreds 
of consolation in this thought, but not, it must be 
confessed, a very sure or lofty comfort for our sor¬ 
rows and wearinesses. The dim horizon that sur¬ 
rounds us, may change indeed without becoming 
any brighter. It is scant solace to know that present 
griefs must pass, if we are at the same time assured 
that future trials will replace them. Not a lifetime 
of experience is needed to convince us that so long 
as we are on earth and in the vale of tears, our 
days will be only a change, not a surcease of suf¬ 
fering. We lay down one cross only to take up an¬ 
other, leave one rough way only to set our feet on 
another which may be yet more rude. 

Still, we are forever looking forward. Hope 


130 On Looking Forward 

springs in us forever. Just past each dun horizon 
must be peace! Our hearts crave to be happy, and 
the very eagerness of that incessant craving begets 
in us the hope of some day reaching what we long 
for. Since we so desire to be happy, to be content, 
to be at rest, there must somewhere be the goal of 
our desire. Our way of looking forever onward is 
witness to our instinctive conviction of a future hap¬ 
piness to which we believe that we may some day 
attain. 

But oh, we do not make use enough of that 
celestial prospect that lies somewhere before us, to 
cheer and to encourage our faltering steps along 
the paths of goodness! We do not look far enough 
ahead, nor catch clearly enough the light that 
streams upon us from that coming dawn! Our 
sight is too dim. Our gaze is fixed too low to per¬ 
ceive the radiance that comes to us from heaven. 
So we miss the great encouragement, the exceeding 
peace and joy what we might have by looking still 
farther forward along our way. 

Too commonly it is only the comforts and allevi¬ 
ations of this life that cheer us in prospect, when 
we look ahead from sorrow to find consolation and 
peace. These things may be good enough in their 
way, necessary aids to us along the dusty path of 
toil and trouble, but their anticipation does not bring 
lasting satisfaction. They are too momentary and 


On Looking Forward 131 

trivial. They come and pass too swiftly. There 
is no substance in them to feed the incessant hunger 
of our souls. 

But if we look from our low valleys of despon¬ 
dency and catch sight of the joy and peace of heaven, 
then we have matter indeed for deep consolation and 
for substantial joy. The traveler through a moun¬ 
tainous country, walking on over the hills and 
through the valleys, his heart set on the distant 
city, grows weary and discouraged at the roughness 
and difficulty of the way. Yet from time to time, 
toiling up steep ascents and climbing over broken 
paths of the mountains, he sees before him gentler 
stretches of his journey, where the road is shaded 
and smooth and there are pleasant places to walk 
and to rest. The distant vision allays a little the 
agony of his present hardships. But when, from a 
lofty height, after many days of weary travel, he 
looks at last on the city to which he has longed to 
come, when he sees the goal of all his longing, and 
thinks that in a little while he will set his weary 
feet on its wished-for streets, and rest his tired limbs 
in its peaceful places, then all the fatigue of the 
long way falls from him like a cloak. His pulses 
quicken with courage, and swinging forward he de¬ 
vours the way with speed. The sight of the city of 
his desire has made him forget all previous weari¬ 
nesses, the anticipation of a speedy coming-home 


132 On Looking Forward 

has washed from his soul all the bitterness of travel. 

It will be so with us, if, casting our gaze a little 
farther forward we will look, from time to time, 
on the bright city of Heaven, toward which all our 
steps are bent, to which all our hopes finally aspire. 
At the end of all our ways, the goal of all our efforts 
and our strivings, waits that great town of peace 
and of delight. Its white battlements and crystal 
towers, more real than the mansions of earth, and 
destined to endure for our great joy forever, beckon 
us from afar and bid us be brave of heart. One 
glimpse of its tranquil and unending joys, can con¬ 
sole us for any bitter day. Only the thought of 
what is kept for us in heaven, will assuage all the 
weariness and sorrows of the passing world. 

It is a great gift of our faith that we can always, 
from any point in our earthly journey, lift up the 
eyes of our spirit and look into the city of Heaven. 
The earthly wayfarer, far off from his goal, is con¬ 
tent to think of the city to which he is going. So 
to the eyes of our faith, heaven may always be pres¬ 
ent and near. It is no fiction of the fancy, no in¬ 
substantial dream of longing poets, this city of our 
peace. God Himself has vouched for its reality, and 
we have His word for its beauty and its joys, which 
eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor hath it entered 
the mind of man to conceive. Every step of our 
earthly way can open up for us new vistas which end 


On Looking Forward 133 

in heaven. From any rudeness of the path or steep¬ 
ness of the ascent we can turn our eyes upon the 
City of Peace. 

The reality of heaven should mightily console us. 
Perhaps we may have traveled far and seen many 
cities of the earth, perhaps again our ways have lain 
in a narrow circle and we have visited scarcely any 
of the great centers of human life and of history. 
Yet we are very sure that those famous towns do 
stand, and we know much of their beauty, their in¬ 
terest and their variety, from what we have seen 
in books and pictures or heard from travelers. Paris 
with its fair boulevards and its historic churches, its 
parks and palaces, is very real to us; London, great 
and substantial, with its fogs and towering piles, 
its crowds and traffic; New York, immense and new 
in comparison with the cities of the ancient world; 
Rome, richest in Christian antiquities; Bombay, 
Pekin, the cities of the ancient East—there are few 
of us who have seen all these, and yet we know with 
certainty that they exist. By authentic testimony 
we have been taught their place and their history, 
and we are sure that traveling in such and such a 
direction for such a time, we should come to their 
walls. 

With even greater certainty, for the witness of 
God is surer than the testimony of men, we are 
assured of the existence of heaven. We have the 


134 On Looking Forward 

word of God Himself as warrant that our heavenly 
home truly exists and that it will endure forever. 
Traveling in the way of God’s Commandments and 
for the time that He has appointed us to live, we 
shall surely come to the gates of that everlasting 
city of exceeding peace and joy; and if we are 
friends of God we have already a place within its 
walls, and an immortal mansion is there made ready 
for us. The cities of the world rise and fall, and 
where this generation sees the splendors of life and 
of art, great buildings and mighty populations, an¬ 
other age shall come to gaze on mournful ruins, and 
speculate on the vanished life of our great cities, as 
we do concerning Sidon and Tyre and ancient 
Athens and classic Rome. But the walls and bat¬ 
tlements of heaven, not built by human hands, will 
never fall to ruin. So long as God is God, through 
the limitless ages of eternity, we may look forward 
to a life of joy and peace in that celestial city where 
the eternal Goodness and Power will call into play 
the endless resources of His omnipotence to make us 
happy. From every height and hollow of our mor¬ 
tal ways we may catch sight of those sparkling tow¬ 
ers that beckon us on to the Town of the Peace of 
God. 

There is not a step that we take along the paths 
of God’s service in our life’s long journey, but 
brings us nearer to heaven. There is no single little 


135 


On Looking Forward 

act of goodness, but sets us just so much forward 
in the road of supernatural merit that leads to the 
gates of that dwelling of delight. Time, so relent¬ 
less in his flight, carrying us forward so swiftly, is 
only hurrying us toward eternal joy and peace and 
glory. If God permits us sometimes to be severely 
tried, tempted, cast down, beset with sorrows, it is 
because these hard paths lead to heaven. 

Courage and strength and cheer will come to us 
if we learn the secret of the saints, to walk the ways 
of this life with our eyes fixed on heaven, looking 
forward, with humble confidence, to our unending 
home. Incomparably greater than the passing solace 
of looking forward to better days in this world, is 
the deep consolation of anticipating that peace and 
rejoicing which will never end. The ills of this life, 
its labors, pains and sorrows, are of their nature 
passing. They cannot stay to try us, they flow away 
with the stream of time, they are but fleeting inci¬ 
dents of a life which itself is fleeting. But we can 
gaze onward and see, as the end of all, a peace that 
must endure forever. Just as it is the nature of 
earthly things to change, so it is the nature of heaven 
always to continue. Here we are in trials and 
labors, there we shall be forever in rest and glory 
and delight. 

We must teach ourselves, therefore, when life is 
hard and our feet are weary, to look forward past 


136 On Looking Forward 

all the bounds of earth and of time, and fix our 
eyes on heaven. We must practice a lively faith in 
that good to come, for which we have the promise 
of God Himself that He will give it as a reward 
to those who love and serve Him. Could we even 
dimly realize the delights and lasting glory that 
will be ours in that new Jerusalem, we should be 
able to walk lightly and cheerfully through the 
rudest ways of our life’s pilgrimage. For, as St. Paul 
assures us in a much-quoted and most memorable 
passage, the sorrows and pains of this life bear no 
proportion to that glory to come, even if we our¬ 
selves should have to bear them all. As we look 
forward to heaven, both the joys and sorrows of 
this life dwindle away. Its passing joys lose their 
power to allure us, its sorrows discourage us no 
longer, for we realize that we have not here a last¬ 
ing city and we look for the things that are to come. 


ETERNITY 


W ORDS, of course, stand for ideas, but 
there are some words whose immense 
content of thought we can never fathom 
in a lifetime of study and reflection because the idea 
for which they stand is vast beyond all our powers 
of comprehension. One of these immense and over¬ 
powering words is—“eternity!” 

All our experience, during our life on earth, has 
been with time and with the things of time. Our 
soul, though it is immortal and therefore destined 
to be a citizen of eternity, has so far always been 
subject to the limitations of a life of days, hours, 
moments, and has consequently no experience of that 
manner of being which it is eventually to enjoy 
forever. Therefore, it is hard for us to realize the 
vast and staggering significance to us of this great 
word “eternity.” Yet it is of extreme importance 
to understand its meaning, for very soon we shall 
be in the midst of the reality which this term now 
so feebly expresses for us. 

We shall live forever! When we read or hear 
these momentous words, a tremor of awe may well 
shake our inmost soul. We, you and I and all the 
innumerable millions of mankind, past and present 

137 


138 Eternity 

and to come, shall exist forever, essentially the same 
as we are now, beings of conscious individuality, 
with our body and our soul—shall go on living, not 
merely for a million nor for a million million years, 
but, literally, forever! We may each lay our hand 
upon our breast and say: “I, with this body that I 
now possess, with this soul that now animates my 
body, shall live a conscious and individual life for¬ 
ever and forever. This person who is I, this indi¬ 
viduality that I am ever aware of during all my 
waking hours, will never cease its self-knowing and 
percipient life throughout all conceivable and future 
ages! 

The mind reels, the imagination grows dizzy and 
utterly fails, when we endeavor to conceive the 
meaning of eternity. We are so accustomed, so 
chained down and shackled to the conditions of time, 
that the intelligence must use its keen powers of 
abstraction to conceive an existence in which we shall 
be free from the decays, the wastings, witherings and 
fallings away of time, and possessed of an existence 
that is of its nature not perishable and rushing to 
destruction, but essentially unending and destined to 
endure forever. When the imagination, tied down 
to time and fed on the things of time, endeavors to 
picture to us the nature of an existence that is 
eternal, it merely heaps vast terms of years on years, 
millions on millions on millions of ages, and then 


Eternity 139 

grows faint at the endless vista of its own conceiv¬ 
ing. 

Ingenious aids have been devised to aid us to 
realize in some faint way the meaning of eternity. 
One hears them sometimes in the course of retreats, 
when this solemn subject is considered. Thus, one 
time-honored illustration runs: “If the whole uni¬ 
verse were a vast ball of steel, and if every hundred 
years a tiny bird were to come and brush its sur¬ 
face with a downy wing, how long! how inter¬ 
minably long, it would be before that gentle fric¬ 
tion would wear away the whole huge, stubborn 
bulk of steel! Yet, even then, eternity would 
scarcely have begun!” Again: “If one were to 
draw a line an inch long, and make that length rep¬ 
resent a million years, and then were to extend the 
line beyond the limits of the world, beyond the sun, 
beyond the universe, with each inch of that incon¬ 
ceivable distance representing a million years, such 
a huge duration would not measure even a moment 
of eternity!” 

Theology, with its brave efforts to reach the very 
limits of human intelligence of the divine, has thus 
phrased the eternity of God of which our own 
eternity is the copy and shadow: “The full and 
perfect possession, all together, of life unfading.” 
We faintly conceive, as in a glass and darkly, that 
full, glorious, perfect and comprehensive life, en- 


140 Eternity 

joyed not by moments and hours, but all together 
with every possible fulness, and not changing, wax¬ 
ing nor waning as the moments pass (as is the case 
with our puny existence on this earth), but unfad¬ 
ing, undecaying, unchanged as long as God is God! 

In their truest and completest sense these splendid 
words are only verified, it is true, in God’s own in¬ 
communicable and infinite Being. But we ourselves, 
in eternity, shall according to our nature partake 
in God’s unchanging, full and glorious life. We, 
too, shall have, by His mercy and all-power, “the 
full and perfect possession, all together, of the life 
unfading” which He has prepared in heaven for 
those that love Him. 

Again, a poet has endeavored to express his 
vision of eternity. We quote from memory; 

I saw eternity the other night, 

hike a great ring of pure and endless light, 

All calm, as it was bright. 

And round beneath it, time, in hours, days, years. 
Driven by the spheres. 

Like a dark shadow whirled. 

In which the earth and all its train were hurled . 

If we ponder these lines and endeavor to conjure 
up the vision of the poet, they do indeed help us to 
conceive the reality that we call life eternal. Eter- 


Eternity 141 

nity is like a great circle without end, of calm and 
pure and endless light, where there is “the full and 
perfect possession, all together, of life unfading,” 
without change nor the fear or shadow of change. 
And time, like a restless shadow, whirled in the 
ceaseless rush of hours, days, years, whirls beneath 
the calm circle of eternity, coexisting with it, sur¬ 
veyed and dominated by it, but not disturbing nor 
annoying the repose of that ceaseless existence, of 
that full and perfect possession of life undying. 

It is very pitiful that we are not more stirred and 
helped in our daily efforts in God’s service, by the 
thought of eternity. This is a strong thought, a 
strength-giving thought if only we would have the 
industry to ruminate upon it and to make it part of 
our realizations. We have constantly to struggle 
against the attractions, the pleasures, the allure¬ 
ments of the world, and we are constantly subject 
to the illusion that these things, flattering as they 
are to our lower natures, are the substantial good 
things, the worth-while rewards of life. The world 
and the flesh and the devil trade upon our 
credulousness by offering us the kingdoms of the 
world and their riches as though these things were 
to last forever. The realization of eternity strikes 
the scales from our spiritual eyes and lets us see how 
utterly worthless and passing are all the goods of 
earth, even though we ourselves could possess them 


142 Eternity 

all. All the deceits of Satan, all the illusions of our 
own pride, vanity and sensuality, crumble and fade 
into their ashy vileness like the apples of Sodom at 
the breath of that awful word, “eternity!” 

We are so near to eternity! A thin and falling 
wall, the slender barrier of our earthly life, is all 
that separates us from that Great Reality. We walk 
always upon the very brink of eternity, and no one 
can assure us that the next day or the next hour will 
not bring the summons to cross the thin line between 
this life and the life eternal and to stand in the 
presence of that all-wise and all-just Judge who 
will determine, or rather who will declare for us 
how we ourselves by our actions have determined, 
our eternal destiny. The solid lines of the things 
around us, the firm curve of earth and the abiding 
vault of the sky shall, at some undiscoverable in¬ 
stant, waver and break to our soul’s vision and 
reveal to us the amazing nearness of eternity. Death, 
so little realized, so rarely understood, will soon 
rend the veil that now keeps us from seeing that 
time and all its pomps, affairs and riches are really 
as nothing, and that the one abiding reality is the 
life eternal. 

There is an immense consolation, amid the suf¬ 
ferings and anxieties of this life, in the thought of 
eternity. The swift stroke of death brings, to those 
who are friends of God, a sudden peace. From the 


Eternity 143 

whirling shadow of time, from the weariness of 
body and vexation of soul that plague them here, 
they come suddenly into a bath of peace and rest. 
And even though their sins unatoned for send them 
for a while into purgatory, yet that fiery ordeal is 
only a dark vestibule to a glorious eternity. Who 
can conceive the joy or who can comprehend the 
peace that come to the blessed souls who are safe in 
God’s heaven for all eternity. That word, which to 
us has so much of mystery and fear, is for them an 
assurance that no fear nor pain nor lessening of 
delight will ever come to them for all the ages of 
ages. God Himself has wiped the tears forever 
from their eyes. Their eternal bliss shall last while 
God is God! 

The too, most moving, most stirring thought, the 
bliss of each single one of us in eternity shall be the 
exact result, according to the exquisite measure of 
God’s justice, of our actions now in time. Day by 
day, according to the degree of our love of God, our 
faithfulness in His service, we are determining for 
ourselves the precise point of glory, height of knowl¬ 
edge, refulgence of beauty, depth of the compre¬ 
hension and the love of God we shall enjoy in the 
mansions of eternity. Every meritorious action 
done in the grace of God, will lift us so much higher 
among the eternal choirs. Every opportunity lost 
for merit here, means so much glory gone from us 


144 Eternity 

for eternity. Striving to realize these things, shall 
there not come to us something of the spirit of the 
saints, who despised all things save in so far as they 
concerned eternity? “What has this to do with 
eternity?” was often on the lips of that young prince, 
Aloysius of Gonzaga, who had given up his patri¬ 
mony here for the inheritance of the Kingdom of 
Heaven. The world, this life, all we can have or 
hope for here, are only precious in so far as they can 
help us when we use them or lift us when we 
trample on them, nearer to a glorious eternity. 

If we even feebly comprehend the meaning of 
eternity and the nothingness of all earthly things 
except in so far as they make for a happy eternity, 
we shall be able to look much deeper into the 
providence of God, though that inscrutable and dear 
mystery is hidden from our fuller comprehension 
until the dawn of eternity itself. For all that God 
ordains and permits in this world is done and per¬ 
mitted not with the narrow wisdom of time, but in 
the wide and infinite wisdom of eternity. Viewed 
in the light of time, the world might seem a hope¬ 
less snarl of wickedness and evil. The innocent are 
oppressed, the weak downtrodden, the unscrupulous 
triumph, the conscientious often are overborne. 
Good men meet with misfortune, wicked ones are 
sometimes happy—why does God allow things to 
go so utterly wrong at times? The answer is in 


Eternity 145 

eternity. There all things will be seen to have 
worked for the glory of God and the good of those 
who love Him. 

So that the thought of eternity is at once a con¬ 
solation, a warning and a clue to the strange riddle 
of life. We are to go on hopefully, confidently and 
yet fearfully, working out in this life with God’s 
ever-present aid, our glorious eternity. We shall 
be kind to those who are walking with us on the 
road to God’s kingdom, for they shall be our com¬ 
panions for all ages; charitable also to those others 
who now seem to us to be bent toward perdition, for 
their conversion may be one of the joyful surprises 
of eternity, and they may come at last in God’s 
wonderful providence to merit a higher place than 
we in heaven. Thus, with the light of eternity upon 
us, we walk safely and swiftly through this valley 
of shadows, thinking upon the light and the joy to 
come. For soon the solid scheme of things that now 
holds us so firmly, shall be broken for us by the 
hand of Death. Then we shall find a sudden door 
to escape forever from the tyranny of time, to mount 
to our judgment, to cleanse our weary souls in the 
healing bath of purgatory. Then we shall enter, 
please God, into the mansion of our eternity, where 
eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor hath it entered 
the mind of man to conceive the joys that God has 
prepared for those that love Him! 


THE MIRROR OF THE PASSION 

SCENE or an event is often more vividly 
and movingly represented to us in the 



^ description of another, than if we see it 
with our own very eyes. Some gifted persons have 
such a keen apprehension, such a swift and 
powerful imagination and so splendid a power of 
throwing their impressions and their comprehensions 
into burning words of eloquence and feeling, that 
their telling of an episode moves us more powerfully 
than the episode itself. Through their eyes we can 
see more vividly than with our own. 

It is often said that we get from an experience or 
a sight, what we bring to it. We take profit from 
the things we see and experience, in proportion as 
our own apprehension is vivid and our own minds 
are keen. Keeping these considerations in view, we 
may discover how best to appreciate, to realize and 
profit by the most sacred passion and death of Christ 
Our Lord. The saints have outdone themselves in 
ecstasies of earnestness when they tell us of the 
preciousness of this appreciation of Christ’s holy 


146 


The Mirror of the Passion 147 

passion. The passion is, they say, a book of all- 
heavenly wisdom, wherein one can read in flaming 
characters the love and mercy of God and His jus¬ 
tice, the dreadfulness of sin, the nothingness of life, 
the values of eternity. 

In the passion, God’s love is shown for men in the 
most convincing and appealing way. If we can do 
no more than read the meaning of the crucifixion, 
we shall learn all that we need to know of life and 
death and eternity. But we are thoughtless, weak 
and inconstant. The eternal Lord of Glory has 
made Himself man for our sake, has lived to suffer 
and expiate for our sins, and finally, in an excess of 
mercy and pity, has mounted upon the bloody Altar 
of the Cross, wrestling with death and hell for 
weary hours, and dying at last an outcast of God 
and man. He was wounded for our iniquities and 
bruised for our sins, and the punishment of our 
guilt was upon Him. We know all these things, 
but we never have realized them. We believe, but 
we do not appreciate these truths. The sight of the 
cross moves us, indeed, but not so much as is fitting. 
We are so blind and dull of comprehension, that 
even the appalling tragedy of Calvary goes above 
our heads and we cannot comprehend it. 

To whom shall we go, then, to interpret to us 
the holy passion? Who will teach us to read this 
book of books, wherein all heavenly and earthly 


148 The Mirror of the Passion 

wisdom are synopsized for us? Through whose 
eyes shall we see aright the sufferings of Christ? 
For answer look upon the Mother of God standing 
at the foot of His cross. She, better than any other 
human being, knows and can tell us the depths and 
heights of the mercy and sufferings of her Lamb, 
slain for our sins. If we would understand the 
passion of Our Lord, let us see it through the eyes 
of His Mother. She was the constant and close 
companion of all His sorrows. An ineffable sym¬ 
pathy, a delicate oneness of comprehension, a most 
subtle interchange of thought and feeling and 
emotion, bound these two hearts and souls together 
as no human hearts were ever linked after or before. 

The Heart of Jesus and the Heart of Mary both 
were most sensitive, tender, affectionate and re¬ 
sponsive. There are delicate instruments, which, 
with the aid of electricity, can make audible 
infinitesimally faint sounds, so that murmurs and 
throbbings which would utterly escape our dull 
hearing, become perceptible and clear by means of 
them. Even so, the deep recesses, the still whisper¬ 
ings of Jesus’ Heart were audible to the Heart of 
Mary. Even so she comprehended, beyond what 
we can imagine, every thrill of agony, every start of 
anguish, which the multiplied sins of men, the ven¬ 
geance of His Heavenly Father, gave to that ador¬ 
able Heart. During the long and silent agony of 


The Mirror of the Passion 149 

H is hidden life, when the prospect of His sacred 
passion never left Him, and when all the sins and 
ingratitude of men pressed upon Him like an ugly 
mountain, the Blessed Mother suffered with His 
sorrows and silently endured in companionship with 
His silent suffering. 

We picture that house of Nazareth as a place of 
peace and contentment, and so it was. But the peace 
was the peace of excruciating sorrow patiently borne, 
and the contentment was the contentment of com¬ 
plete resignation to God’s holy will, impressing on 
the soul the symbol of the cross. When, in obe¬ 
dience to the will of His Heavenly Father, Jesus 
went forth from the peace and seclusion of that 
holy home to endure all sorrows, and vexations, the 
misunderstandings of His friends and the fiery 
malice of His enemies, during His public life, His 
Mother’s heart followed Him and suffered with 
Him. 

Sometimes she walked the dusty roads of Judea 
in the footsteps of Her Heavenly Son, and it was 
said to Him on a time, “Thy Mother and Thy 
brethren are without, seeking Thee.” But even 
when she was not bodily present with Him, her 
heart and her thoughts, her sympathy and her com¬ 
prehension always hovered near Him and yearned 
to shield Him, if it had been God’s will, from the 
cruel insults and agony with which rude men 


150 The Mirror of the Passion 

n ' -<«»•.- _ 

tortured His Heart, made unspeakably sensitive to 

suffer for them. Some holy ecstatics, who have fol¬ 
lowed in their meditations the life of Our Lord and 
His Blessed Mother, tell us that there was a per¬ 
petual revelation made to her of all that happened to 
her Divine Son. This we may easily believe, since 
their destinies were so linked together. Surely, 
whatever came to Him was quickly made manifest to 
her, and so she knew the secret plotting and crafty 
snares His enemies were weaving against Him. She 
knew the gathering sadness of spirit, the sense of 
betrayal which He felt when denied by His friends 
and deserted by His followers. 

1 

Through all this immense weariness and sorrow, 
her Heart followed His Heart to the end of His 
public life, and she knew, assuredly, when one of 
the Twelve betrayed Him, and saw His Sacred 
Heart, wounded and aghast at the treason of a man 
whom He had chosen for an intimate friend. If she 
was aware of and could follow all His sufferings 
during His life, how close and exquisite must have 
been her sympathy and knowledge during the hours 
of His passion? While He, in dryness and desola¬ 
tion, sweated blood in the agony of the Garden, she, 
in a similar agony, must have felt her whole being 
tortured by the sorrow of her Son. She came and 
stayed as near as she was allowed, to Him during 
those sad moments that seemed years of anguish, 


The Mirror of the Passion 151 

whilst He was tried unjustly, condemned most 
wrongfully, made the sport of the brutal soldiery, 
scourged, crowned with thorns, and laden with His 
cross. 

How every blow, every insult and jeer pierced 
her heart before it reached to His! How the sharp 
shriek of the whistling scourges cut to her soul be¬ 
fore the heartless blows tore His tender flesh! The 
jeers of the Roman soldiers and their brutal insults 
wounded her soul while they outraged His Sacred 
Majesty, and when that last cry of rejection, “Away 
with Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” burst 
from the lips of those who were His own people and 
the recipients of His gentle mercy and kindness, it 
broke her Heart even while it tortured the Heart of 
her Divine Son. During the Way of the Cross she 
was as near to Him as she could press, walking 
forward through a dry and terrible desert of agony 
and dereliction. Bravest of the daughters of Juda, 
more strong than Judith, more courageous than the 
mother of the Machabees, she stood beneath the 
cross when all His disciples save John deserted 
Him, and she bore with Him those last hours of 
dereliction until through the deeps of her agonized 
heart rang loud that final cry of anguish: “My 
God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” 

It is no wonder that the Church hails our 
Blessed Mother as the Queen of Martyrs. No 


152 The Mirror of the Passion 

valiant soldier of God, dying a bloody death on the 
sands of the arena, or torn asunder by wild beasts, 
or perishing in the slow agony of the rack or the 
swift torments of fire, has endured the tithe of in¬ 
ward anguish which crucified the heart of the 
Mother of God, while the brutal hands of those 
whom He was dying to redeem, crucified the 
sacred body of her Son. Yet she did not turn away 
her eyes from the awful spectacle of her Fairest of 
the sons of men become as a worm, and no man, 
with all His comeliness and beauty taken from 
Him. She did not faint away; even in the climax 
of her agony she stood and gazed at Him from be¬ 
neath the cross, and with a splendid and heroic 
courage offered herself a victim, in an unbloody but 
fearful agony, to keep company with the bloody 
anguish of her Christ upon the cross. It is from 
her, then, this Mother of Sorrows, this Queen of 
Martyrs, this most blessed and afflicted of all the 
daughters of Eve, that we must learn to read in the 
book of the sacred passion. When you find it diffi¬ 
cult to pray; when your heart still remains cold even 
after the contemplation of the sufferings of Christ, 
betake yourself to Mary. 

Look upon the crucified Saviour through the eyes 
of His most afflicted Mother. Try to conceive what 
she experienced, what was her sympathy, her com¬ 
passion, her share in the agony of Christ. She 


The Mirror of the Passion 153 

suffered more in His sufferings than she could have 
done in her own person, for she loved him much 
more than she did herself. When you make the 
Stations of the Cross, make them in company with 
this Most Beloved Woman. Kneel with her be¬ 
fore her suffering Son, rise with her and look at His 
bloody wounds, sigh with her over the ingratitude of 
His persecutors, weep with her over the sins which 
have slain Him. Especially, in saying the Sorrow¬ 
ful Mysteries of the Rosary, contemplate them with 
the eyes of the Blessed Mother; behold the Agony of 
Christ in the Garden as she suffered it with her Son; 
look upon the Scourging at the Pillar as she saw it, 
really or in vision; contemplate the Crowning with 
Thorns and all that mockery as it afflicted her 
loving heart; see the Carrying of the Cross as she 
walked near, counting each drop that flowed from 
His exhausted Heart, feeling each bruise as He 
stumbled and fell over the stones. Then, at the 
Crucifixion, stand with that agonized Mother, look¬ 
ing with burning eyes and crucified heart at the 
great expiation! 

Unite with her emotions, join wdth her prayers, 
and with her eyes see that ruined Body, that broken 
Flesh, that Countenance scored with grief, that 
Head crowned with thorns, and read as she read, the 
greatness of the mercy and love of God, the rigor 
of His justice and His wrath, the evil of sin, the 


154 The Mirror of the Passion 

wretchedness of life, the value of eternity and all 
that heavenly lore which God has synopsized, wished 
us to learn and realize from the passion. Our sal¬ 
vation is written there and all heavenly wisdom. 
We can best spell it out with the eyes of Mary, 
reading with her in the crimson book of the holy 
cross. 


THE VOCATION OF MOTHERS 


i i A T FIRST I did not realize how 1 m- 
portant a task was mine,” said a Catholic 
^ ^ mother the other day, “when first I 
began to teach my little child. I confess that up to 
that time I had a great many ideas about the in¬ 
fluence of woman, and had engaged in many active 
tasks in club life and social service. I was full to the 
finger-tips of social statistics and could tell you off¬ 
hand where every welfare agency had its headquar¬ 
ters and just what to do and where to go to meet 
almost any civic need. I attended meetings and 
spoke at conventions and was filled with self-satis¬ 
faction when I considered the great future of women 
in America and all the many things one could do to 
help along the Church and the State. Then, one 
day, as my little one grew older, I suddenly began 
to think of the supreme responsibility that I had 
on me, of bringing up this little child. 

“Here was a life just budding into consciousness 
and conscience, with habits forming and character 
taking shape. I could see the swiftness with which 

155 


156 The Vocation of Mothers 

the little mind was developing, and her wise sayings 
and the precocious questions warned me that here 
was a task indeed to train the young thoughts aright 
and plant truth and wisdom before the world had its 
way with error and folly. And that little will! 
How it appalled me sometimes to see how strong, 
determined, obstinate it was getting! Certainly 
sometimes my own will, mature though I am, was 
barely a match for it. Then I saw habits forming, 
little ways and tricks of action, small, almost im¬ 
perceptible beginnings of this or that good or evil 
characteristic, and it startled me to think that these 
faint beginnings would so swiftly harden into habits 
and become almost impossible to change. 

“So I gave up speeches and papers and conventions, 
excellent though I knew them all to be, and let the 
world wag on a while without my aid while I de¬ 
voted myself quite intensely to what now seems to 
me one of the greatest tasks in the world, to bringing 
up that child. Though I am solicitous and careful, 
and though I think I do not consciously leave any¬ 
thing undone to encourage and train, to develop and 
guide that beautiful little life which is just in the 
making, I always think to myself when every day is 
done, how many parts of my great task I have left 
incomplete, and wish that I myself were better and 
nobler, so as to give more and deeper training to 
my child.” 


157 


The Vocation of Mothers 

Wise and significant words, and they express the 
thoughts and feelings of many mothers. The up¬ 
bringing of a child, its training in all that it should 
be and know, is one of the most splendid and the 
most difficult of human duties. It is a task of 
infinite delicacy and vast importance because in the 
early years in particular, the child is so susceptible to 
good influences and evil. Even a small mistake in 
the beginning is too sadly apt to mar a disposition 
or even ruin a life. There are those who say that 
a child’s character is formed in great measure be¬ 
fore it reaches the age of reason. A strange state¬ 
ment, to be sure, and yet it has a groundwork of 
truth. The small habits, the selfish tendencies, the 
inclination to be stubborn, to do its own will, the 
tendency to get everything and give nothing up, the 
insistence on its own way, good or bad, which one 
sees sometimes in a little child, are in reality often 
the beginning of a stubborn, disagreeable and selfish 
character through life. A child may come to the 
age of reason and begin to realize its responsibilities 
only after the unwise indulgence by its parents of its 
whims and fancies, has already spoiled its dis¬ 
position, and has sown the seeds of selfishness and 
self-indulgence even before the child was aware. 

How extremely important are the first years of 
conscious life for the child! Its mind and its will 
are then excessively sensitive to every influence. 


158 The Vocation of Mothers 

One sees how the child of refined and gentle parents 
becomes instinctively gentle and refined by a sweet 
contagion. On the other hand, one notices with 
sorrow how soon the little waifs who run wild in 
city streets assume that precocious wildness which all 
their environment is teaching them hour by hour. 
To watch over such an endlessly precious thing as 
the soul and heart of a child is, therefore, one of the 
most momentous tasks which can be entrusted to 
human nature. It is exceedingly advisable that 
much should be said, and much thought, concerning 
this work of mothers. 

There is too little guidance for those entrusted 
with the formation of the character of a child. Too 
few books have been written for their instruction, 
too seldom one hears sermons or addresses which 
deal with their problems. Too little encourage¬ 
ment and praise is given to those who have greatly 
succeeded in this supreme task. Yet, there seems to 
be a quickening nowadays of the appreciation of 
noble achievement in the upbringing of children. 
We have movements, Mothers’ Societies, Mothers* 
Day, which are at least efforts in the right direction. 
There are signs of a striving to awaken public ap¬ 
preciation of the services which mothers render. 
The great mothers may not, themselves, have been 
eminent or glorious in life; they have never, per¬ 
haps, written great books, nor made great ad- 


The Vocation of Mothers 159 

dresses, nor ruled with a wise and general sway. 
But in a quiet way, with much self-sacrifice, at the 
cost of infinite care, with generous fidelity to duty, 
these mothers have effectively trained their children 
to be good and great. 

There is a worthy tendency nowadays to search 
out and applaud the mothers of illustrious men. 
There is a rising inclination to decorate the achieve¬ 
ments of mothers and to acknowledge, at the true 
source from which it springs, the greatness or the 
nobleness of their children. If one could search 
the hidden ways of history and could find the very 
beginnings of the eminence and of the goodness 
which it chronicles, one would have to pass through 
many devious ways and spend weary hours in ex¬ 
ploring the hidden springs of character and nobility. 
But through rough ways and plain, one would be led 
along the years back to the cradle, and would find 
that the goodness and greatness which have blessed 
the world come, in most instances, through the train¬ 
ing of a devoted and prudent mother. 


SUPPOSE THEY DID 


HE Golden Rule, to do to others in all 



things as we would be done by, is extremely 


practical and easy of comprehension. Our 
Lord formulated it for us with most beautiful 
clearness, and gave as well some notion of its im¬ 
portance, when He bade us: “All things therefore 
whatsoever you would that men should do to you, 
do you also to them. For this is the law and the 
prophets.” The whole of our duty to each other, 
all the observance of the law and the prophets, is 
condensed into this superexcellent maxim, to deal 
with others in all ways as we should like them to 
deal with us. 

It is a precious rule, a golden rule, because it is at 
once so practical and so simple. It proceeds also, 
most conveniently, from the better known to the 
less familiar; from the things we find it easy to esti¬ 
mate, to the ones that are difficult and perplexing. 
We all know, quite definitely and clearly, just how 
we should like to be treated by others, but we find it 
very hard sometimes to remember how we ought to 


160 


161 


Suppose They Did 

act toward them. The Golden Rule handily re¬ 
verses the ever-present measure of how we should 
like to be done by, and makes it the standard of 
how we should act to those about us. 

It is amusing sometimes (we should at least have 
the grace and the humor to laugh at ourselves), how 
accurately, completely and correctly we judge, esti¬ 
mate and decide on how others should rightly act 
toward us, and how mindful we are of even their 
least duty toward us. Even on points in which we 
are particularly deficient toward others, we are 
great sticklers for a full measure of what is due to 
us from them. In fact, we are rather more sensitive 
on just those points in the conduct of others in which 
we ourselves most offend. Nothing hurts our selfish¬ 
ness more than to suffer from some one else’s; the 
rude are most heartily shocked at being treated 
rudely, and when we are in bad humor ourselves the 
last thing in the world we can endure is some one 
else’s testiness. In fact, our astonishment and sur¬ 
prise at the faults of others is usually in just the re¬ 
verse ratio to our regret and shame for our own. 
We are clear-sighted when it comes to seeing what 
others should do for us, and dim-sighted when we 
consider what we should do for them. 

Just here, comes in the helpfulness of the Golden 
Rule, for it equalizes, by a simple comparison, our 
spiritual vision. You need not puzzle nor wonder, 


162 


Suppose They Did 

it tells us, as to what your conduct to others should 
be, for the answer is ever with you. You know 
quite well and see quite clearly, just what you should 
like others to be and to do to you. Well, then, be 
and do identically the same to them, and you will 
fulfil the law and the prophets. In other words, our 
self-love and self-interest are an excellent measure 
of what should be our love and interest for others. 
When you are brought in contact with some one else, 
ask yourself, “If our positions were reversed, what 
should I reasonably wish him to do for me?” and 
then act so, and you shall be very secure. 

That is all very well to say, answers our human 
nature, and very lovely to do if one could realize and 
remember and had besides the good grace to do what 
one knows one ought. But in practice there are dif¬ 
ficulties. To begin with, things look so different 
when there is question of one’s own interests and the 
interests of others. It depends so much whose hat 
falls into the water. You remember the comic 
situation, which repeats itself under various forms in 
many literatures, of the man who laughs uproariously 
at the funny side of someone’s hat, knocked off the 
pier and floating away on the tide, until he realizes 
that the hat is his own. Then it seems to him that 
the laughter of the silly fools around him at the sight 
of a man’s only hat drifting off in the water, is the 


Suppose They Did 163 

rawest kind of heartlessness. It makes so much dif¬ 
ference who owns the hat. 

We need, then, obviously, some help to enable us 
rightly to apply to our life of every day this Golden 
Rule, which also turns to gold all to which we apply 
it for God’s love. Let us see if it will not greatly 
clarify our duties to others to ask ourselves, sincerely 
and without reserve, how should we like it if others 
acted toward us precisely as we act toward them? 
To be of effect, this survey of our way of treating 
others must be pitilessly candid and without disguise. 
Honestly, now, suppose tomorrow everyone you 
know should begin to treat you precisely as you have 
been in the habit of treating others, how should you 
like it? One could make an amusing tale, perhaps, 
by vividly imagining the result. How disgusted, 
horrified even, and surely very, very much sur¬ 
prised we should be, if we awoke tomorrow to see 
our own pet and cherished failings toward others 
reflected in their dealings with ourselves. What an 
extremely disagreeable world it would be—for, re¬ 
member, it is the failings we have ourselves, that 
most displease us in others. 

There is—not to pry too deep into our foibles, 
which however we, as we read, should search out 
with an unsparing hand—there is that preference we 
have for having our own way. We are a positive 
character, so we are. Mother, for example, has a 


164 Suppose They Did 

great deal of giving in to do when we are around.. 
In fact, we have so long and perseveringly insisted 
on having our own way, that Mother has given up 
long ago having any preferences on certain matters, 
because she knows that for the sake of peace we 
shall have to have our way at last, and it is better 
to yield betimes and save a controversy. But sup¬ 
pose, tomorrow, Mother should awake with just that 
self-sufficient and bumptious resolution to have her 
own way with which we ourselves have for so long 
been entertaining the household. Whew! what 
hearts of controversy! Go through the day in fancy, 
and see what battles, contests, and collisions would 
make the hours lively. It is clear, then, that we 
are not acting toward Mother as we should like her 
to act toward us. By the Golden Rule, our actions 
are awry. For “Mother,” put whomsoever else you 
have to deal with, and for having your own way, 
any other fault you favor, and you will have a glass 
in which to scan your daily deeds and see whether 
they are as lovely as you could desire. 

Then, there are our friends, far away. Suppose 
they all acted toward us just as we act toward them. 
Ye dilatory and infrequent letter-writers, take 
guilty heed! How pleasant it is for ourselves to 
get a letter in which tidings of those we love are 
mingled with words of affection and interest. It is 
no small act of charity sometimes to write the right 


165 


Suppose They Did 

sort of letter. We so prefer to get one than to send 
one! But if everyone were as tardy in answering as 
we—should we quite like it? Behold your mirror 
and amend! 

If we apply this same little artifice of realization 
to our dealings with those of other worlds, perhaps it 
may bring us some keener twinges of our sluggish 
conscience. The poor, suffering souls in purgatory, 
for instance—how we forget them and neglect both 
their great, pitiful need and the close bonds of 
relationship, gratitude and love with which so many 
of them are joined to us. A constant, low, pitiful 
moaning should cry forever in our hearts for all 
those prisoners of God in the place of longing and 
expiation. We so easily disregard and forget, for 
hours on hours, and for days on days, and we can so 
easily aid them. But suppose that we ourselves 
have gone beyond into that gulf of atonement and 
are lying in desolation and exile from heaven, wait¬ 
ing in woe for those intolerably slow dregs of pain 
to drain away, and those excruciatingly lingering 
stains to be cleansed, so that we can get to the light 
of God’s countenance and to His embrace of heaven. 
We look, with hopeful and fearful eyes to earth, to 
our friends, from whom we can reasonably expect all 
aid that is possible—and they can do so much!—be¬ 
cause they have loved us and they grieve for us. 
But alas! only an occasional ejaculation, the aid of a 


166 


Suppose They Did 

half-distracted prayer, comes to us by the merciful 
hands of the angels. 

Can it be possible—atrocious thought!—that our 
friends have forgotten? Forgotten to pray for us, 
when by their faith they know that we must be in 
dreadful need and that they can help so easily? One 
can imagine the poignant complaint of our astonished 
soul. What shall the angels say to us. “Dear child, 
they are doing as you did when you were still on 
earth. Believing but forgetting, knowing but not 
realizing, letting every small interest of the earth 
distract you from pleading for the poor holy souls.” 

If we apply this simple consideration to our deal¬ 
ings with our greatest and dearest Friend, how pierc¬ 
ing is the light it can throw on our sad short¬ 
comings in keeping up our side of this most sacred 
friendship. Suppose, suppose for one moment of 
vivid realization, that Our Lord treated us as we 
are treating Him. We are withheld from neglecting 
our earthly friends and from treating them ill, by the 
very practical reflection, if by no other, that they 
will in fact treat us just about as we treat them; 
and so, by a tinsel imitation of the Golden Rule, we 
act on the quite veracious but not very lofty maxim: 
“Do to others so that others will do to you.” But 
Our Lord is merciful even to the cold and undutiful. 
Do we forget Him the more easily when we should 
lovingly remember, because He will bear so much? 


167 


Suppose They Did 

Then apply to this friendship also our illuminating 
reflection. Suppose Our Lord treated us as we 
have been treating Him? We are in constant and 
anxious need of His visits, visits of light, visits of 
grace and consolation. If He forgot us for an in¬ 
stant we should be more miserable than a weanling 
without its mother, than a lost child. Suppose He 
thought of us only now and then, when nothing else 
claimed His care. Suppose He heeded our invitations 
and entreaties to be near us, to think of us, to love 
us in our need, only now and then, when He hap¬ 
pened to remember and be in the mood. Suppose 
that He replied to our necessities by saying that it is 
a good thing, indeed, to help us, but some one else 
should do it, because He has many other preoccupa¬ 
tions and cares. 

Yet all these things are precisely what we do to 
Our Lord. He wants us near Him, often, in the 
Blessed Sacrament, not for His good but for ours; 
He needs our aid, not in His own person, but in the 
wants of His poor, in the manifold activities of His 
Church, His mystical Body. Suppose He treated 
us as we treat the missions, as we deal with the 
interests of Catholic literature, as we help the poor? 
It will be a piercing and a cleansing thought for us 
if we answer these questions honestly. And having 
answered them, we shall be better able to shape our 
lives by the Golden Rule. 


THE PAINTER OF FLOWERS 


A FRIEND who was an art student of Paris 
in the last generation, once told us an inci¬ 
dent that is a parable. There was in that 
day a painter of Paris who had a most excellent and 
singular talent for painting flowers. He could catch 
the very soul of a blossom and put its delicate tints 
so exquisitely on canvas that one would gasp with 
surprise, thinking that one saw the very flower itself 
still wet with dew. He could paint fruit, too, most 
excellently, this old painter, and catch the bloom of 
a peach or the luster of a plum in a marvelous way. 
Yet such is the strange perversity of human nature, 
in all the exhibitions at the Salon he never would 
consent to put on show his lovely pieces of flowers 
and fruit, but always insisted on presenting can¬ 
vasses, most carefully and dutifully wrought, which 
portrayed historic scenes and human likenesses—a 
sort of composition for which this old painter had no 
talent at all. 

The consequence was, that while his friends 
raved over his fruit and flowers, the artistic world 

168 


169 


The Painter of Flowers 

which came to his Salon knew the old man only as 
a dabbler in portraits and historic scenes. Never, in 
the course of his long career as a painter, did he win 
the slightest notice from the arbiters of art in the 
capital of artists of the world. His friends used to 
remonstrate with him and beg him to put on ex¬ 
hibition some of his fruits and flowers, but no—he 
did not wish to show the things that he could do best 
nor to use the one talent that he had. His ambition 
and vain desire was always fixed toward a field of 
art in which he could not possibly attain success. 

We see many men and women in the world 
who are precise imitators of this foolish old painter. 
We have, all of us, a talent for something. There 
is some particular thing that we might do excellently 
well if only we set our minds to it. By careful and 
painstaking exertion we could really do great service 
to our neighbor and win great glory in heaven for 
ourselves by doing, for the love of God, the one par¬ 
ticular thing that we are fitted for by nature. Yet, 
like the old artist, very many of us are perpetually 
sighing after some field of effort for which we are in 
no way equipped by nature, and neglecting the field 
of opportunity which is our very own and for which 
God, by His gifts, evidently intended us. 

Is it true that we could each one of us do some 
one thing excellently? Yes, absolutely true. With 
training and self-knowledge and a right estimate of 


170 The Painter of Flowers 

our own limitations, we could each one of us pick out 
some field of effort in which we are qualified to 
shine. It may not be a very exalted or noble form 
of effort in the eyes of the world. To paint fruit 
and flowers well, is a rather low form of art and 
not to be compared with that amazing skill which 
can fix the subtle expression of the human counte¬ 
nance and call from the past the living scenes of 
history. But, withal, it is a goodly and creditable 
thing to be able to paint even fruits and flowers; 
and since all our actions are made holy by the in¬ 
tention with which we do them, there is as much 
merit and credit in the sight of God in painting 
flowers and fruits as there would be in covering the 
walls of the Salon with gorgeous master-pieces of 
genre. So, too, in our own lives the thing that we 
are equipped for and called to do, may not be very 
glorious and exceptional in the eyes of the world. 
But the commonplace work of life is even more 
necessary than its glorious and exceptional achieve¬ 
ments; and if we are fitted to do some small and 
obscure work and do it excellently for the love of 
God, we shall obtain as much glory in heaven and 
credit with the saints, as though we had drawn down 
on ourselves the applause of nations. 

It is odd and it is pitiful, to see men and women 
who are blind to their own best aptitudes, and disin¬ 
clined to their appointed sphere of action. They 


171 


The Painter of Flowers 

pass by the little, necessary things that they could 
do exquisitely for the love of God, and dream of 
accomplishments and achievements for which Provi¬ 
dence has in no way fitted them, and which by the 
utmost exertion, they could do only very badly or 
not at all. Many broken lives and disappointed 
hearts are in the world because of the failure of men 
and women to see, to realize and to seize upon that 
special opportunity for work and effort which Provi¬ 
dence intended to be theirs. 

After all, it is not so much talent nor aptitude 
nor genius that brings success in life, even from a 
material standpoint. It is rather the common-sense 
perception of one’s own limitations and possibilities, 
the courage and humility to choose that special work 
which God has fitted us to do, and then an indomit¬ 
able perseverance to go on through every obstacle 
and discouragement and to carry out our little part 
in the great plan which Providence has made. 
These are the elements of every-day greatness and 
achievement. The men who gain success both for 
the world and for heaven, do so, not so much by 
reason of brilliant talent or excellent ability, but by 
discerning prudently what they can do best, and 
then driving along that one line of effort until, in 
spite of every disadvantage, they come to the ma¬ 
turity of their powers. 

Do one thing excellently, said the old philosopher 


172 The Painter of Flowers 

of Concord, and though you live in the midst of the 
forest, the world will wear a path to your door. He 
was only repeating what the philosophers of old had 
been saying in different ways for ages. 

To discover the one thing that we are best fitted 
for, to be content with that, even though it be only 
painting flowers, then to do that one thing excellent¬ 
ly for the love of God, is the simple formula of real 
success in life. Those who are so discontented with 
their own limitations as to make them an excuse for 
doing nothing, who will not look about for the 
thing that God means them to do, and then do it 
bravely in spite of disadvantages and discourage¬ 
ments, for the love of God, have no right to expect 
success. For this is the reason why God has put us 
in the world—to try, not our talent, which He 
knows, nor our capabilities, which He has deter¬ 
mined, but to test our good will and to prove whether 
we are willing to serve Him in the way in which 
He desires, even though it be only in the painting 
of flowers, for the love of God and with a cheerful 
heart. 


RETREATS FOR WORKING MEN 


F ATHER William Doyle, S.J., of the Irish 
Province, who was killed in the discharge of 
his duty as a chaplain in France, and whose 
Life has had so wide a circulation, was an en¬ 
thusiastic advocate of what may well become a great 
activity of the Church in the immediate future—re¬ 
treats for working men. Had his career not thus 
suddenly been cut off in his prime, he would without 
doubt have pushed on this work with all his might, 
at least in his own country. In affection for the 
memory of such a man and for the sake of the cause 
itself, we should take up and carry on the idea he 
so strongly championed, for it offers the solution 
of one of the most pressing problems which the 
Church will have to meet in this generation. The 
power of working men, immense before the war, has 
been vastly increased by the dependence upon them 
of the nations for all the munitions and supplies 
which went to win the late great conflict. Ad¬ 
mittedly, the world is sweeping toward fuller and 
fuller democracy which means the rule of the people, 

173 


174 Retreats for Working Men 

and the people are in great part the workers. 
When Democracy shall have come, as come it will, 
the working man will literally rule the world. This 
would, at first sight, seem an immense advantage 
for the Church, because most working men who have 
any religion at all nowadays are Catholics. Indeed, 
it will be a tremendous advantage, if our Catholic 
working men are thoroughly instructed in Catholic 
principles and know how to apply the age-long and 
secure teachings of the Church to modern problems 
and to the struggle for their rights. 

A body of fervent, courageous, God-fearing and 
thoroughly pious Catholic working men can greatly 
influence, direct and control the rightful movement 
for the freedom and dignity of labor, and they can 
withstand the injurious encroachments of socialism 
as strongly and to as much effect as they would the 
oppression of capital and the injustice of employers. 
But we must sadly confess, if we are at all in touch 
with the times, that our Catholic working men very 
deplorably want, in many cases, that instruction and 
guidance which will make them safe leaders and 
wise counselors of their own class. Numerous as 
the Catholics are in the labor organizations, they 
have often not the grasp of principles, the knowl¬ 
edge of ethical standards, the practical hold on their 
Christian Faith which will make them at the same 
time bold defenders of their own rights and zealous 


Retreats for Working Men 175 

champions of the rights of others and of the Church. 
Catholic principles require to be interpreted, ap¬ 
plied, developed to meet the needs of every age. In 
the Encyclical of Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum , so 
much spoken of and so little studied and put in prac¬ 
tice, we have a good groundwork for the laboring 
man’s guidance in his struggle for right and justice. 
But thoroughly to equip our Catholic men with these 
principles is no little task. The great and age-long 
strength of Catholic faith and principle so far as it is 
needed to solve the problems of the Catholic laboring 
man, must be taken from the shelves of libraries and 
the covers of Latin volumes and put into a vivid, 
simple, fluent form which the working man can 
assimilate and make part of his own mental life, 
and which he can readily apply for his guidance in 
the strong and sometimes fierce conflicts which he 
may have to wage for principle and justice. 

When one considers the body of Catholic work¬ 
ing men in the United States today, besieged with 
socialistic literature, wheedled by plausible soap-box 
orators, assailed by all manner of insinuating doc¬ 
trines which aim at their Faith and mislead their 
reason; when one thinks again how little instruction, 
inspiration and guidance some of them receive, from 
the Catholic side, one is appalled at the greatness of 
the need and the slightness of our effort to meet it. 
How, then, shall we bring those principles and that 


176 Retreats for Working Men 

guidance, which are the Catholic working man’s 
birthright, clearly and practically before him ? How 
shall we give him a grasp of the real weapons which 
God has provided for his hands, to help and save 
himself and other working men ? . 

Lectures are good as far as the men can be got to 
attend them. Literature is good so far as they can 
be got to read. The formation of study clubs 
among Catholic working men would be a very 
feasible and profitable activity if it were rightly 
conducted and adapted to their needs. But per¬ 
haps the most wonderful and most effective means of 
raising up devoted apostles among our Catholic 
workers is through the medium of working-men’s 
retreats. What are these retreats? They are what 
are called “closed” retreats, where the men leave 
their occupations for at least Friday, Saturday and 
Sunday, the week’s end, and go to a special house of 
retreats where they can be quite by themselves, en¬ 
tirely undistracted, surrounded with every help to 
thoughtful reflection, earnest prayer and careful 
examination. 

There, under the guidance of an experienced 
Director of Retreats, they come under the influence 
of that most admirable and potent instrument of ad¬ 
vancement in wisdom and grace called the Spiritual 
Exercises—a series of systematic reflections which 
put vividly and movingly before them the object of 


Retreats for Working Men 111 

their creation, the purpose of all they see about them, 
the right use of creatures, the call of our Master 
and Leader, Christ, His principles and the ways of 
His enemies, and that right imitation of Him, which 
constitutes the true nobility of man upon earth. 
Thoughtful and serious men, such as many of our 
Catholic working men are, profit immensely by these 
exercises and by the prayers, reflections and self¬ 
examinations which accompany them. They get a 
great and comprehensive view of life and of their 
place in the world, a new sense of personal responsi¬ 
bility and increased zeal and capacity for leadership 
among their fellows. 

From such a retreat Catholic working men who 
before may have been inclined to yield to the 
plausible lure of socialism, or who have been indif¬ 
ferent to their Catholic Faith, come out immensely 
in earnest to fight for Catholic principle, tremend¬ 
ously impressed with their immediate duties as 
leaders of their fellows, and willing to go to any 
effort, to make any sacrifices, in order to promote 
the Kingdom of Christ and to bring to the working 
man that true and holy independence and dignity for 
which the Saviour of Men, who w i as Himself for 
some twenty years a working man, lived and suffered 
and died. 

How shall we promote these retreats for working 
men? In a country like this, where everything is 


178 Retreats for Working Men 

possible, where tremendous resources are at our hand, 
the obvious answer is, build special houses and put 
them in charge of zealous Religious, advertise to the 
Catholic working men of the cities that they are wel¬ 
come, and invite them to come and make retreats. 
The first bands may adventure reluctantly and with 
a sense of trepidation, not knowing what new ex¬ 
perience this may be on which they have been in¬ 
duced to enter. They will go in afraid, but come 
out exulting, and having once experienced in their 
own person the strength, inspiration, light and peace 
which comes from a good retreat, they will be the 
best apostles of the movement, and will see to it that 
the succeeding weeks’ ends are marked by increasing 
crowds of Catholic working men, applying for 
admission. 

If employers who have really the welfare of their 
men at heart could be made to realize the benefits 
of such houses of retreats, there would be no lack 
of funds to raise them or to support them. Honest 
employers have little to fear from an honest en¬ 
forcement of the reasonable rights of labor, but both 
labor and capital have everything to fear from the 
lawless encroachments of revolutionary socialism, 
or unbridled class-selfishness. The working men’s 
retreats will not tend to make the Catholic workers 
less insistent on their rights, but will rather confirm 
them in their manly stand for justice, because they 


Retreats for Working Men 179 

will see more clearly that their rights and the rights 
of their families come from Almighty God Himself. 
But the retreats will discourage them from lawless, 
sudden and violent methods, and teach them what 
sort of labor unions and what manner of labor 
propaganda will most swiftly and lawfully bring 
about the social justice for which every good citizen 
and, much more, every good Catholic, should be 
longing and praying. 

It is hardly necessary to insist very long in speak¬ 
ing to those who are sensitive to the needs of the 
time, on the expediency and even the necessity of 
providing these retreats for working men in every 
large center where Catholic working men can be 
mustered. What is practically required is the spirit 
of active generosity and initiative on the part of 
Catholics to organize and support in their begin¬ 
nings the needed houses for working men’s retreats. 
If we can, at a short notice, raise millions on mil¬ 
lions of dollars for merely civic or recreational activi¬ 
ties (necessary and laudable though these may be), 
what excuse have we for remaining passive when 
the interests of the laboring man and, indeed, the 
whole common welfare demand working men’s re¬ 
treats, and when this tremendous power of the 
workers, rising like a wave, is so soon to sweep on 
either to immense good for the nation, or to dis¬ 
aster and discord beyond conceiving. 


180 Retreats for Working Men 

We are too much in the habit of theorizing, pro¬ 
testing and expecting. We speak much about the 
social problem, social justice, the needs of the work¬ 
ing man, the coming era of Democracy and what 
the Church should gain from the increased power 
of the working classes, to which most of her faith¬ 
ful children belong. But here is a practical, im¬ 
mediate and tested means of bringing actually to 
pass some of the good things that we hope for. Put 
a large, well-conducted center for working men’s 
retreats in every great center of trade and commerce. 
Let it develop, by its weekly retreats, a group of 
Catholic leaders; keep up their fervor, by organizing 
them into Societies for the promotion of retreats 
and for the continuance of the retreatants’ fervor, 
and we shall accomplish the things we hope for 
and shall be doing, besides, our plain and simple 
duty—to bring to the Catholic laboring men the 
needed light, guidance, strength and inspiration in 
that difficult and tremendous task of leadership, 
which is their birthright. 


SPREADING THE GOOD WORD 


Q UITE a number of good Catholics, with no 
especial talent for writing, and, perhaps, 
without the opportunity for exercising the 
apostolate of the pen, have nevertheless a sincere 
though unpractical longing to contribute to the 
Catholic magazines, or to write a good Catholic 
book which shall help for the salvation and the 
sanctification of souls. But do they realize, one 
wonders, the truly precious opportunity that waits 
at their hand to cooperate most effectively and meri¬ 
toriously with those who are engaged in the aposto¬ 
late of Catholic writing, by helping in their own 
way to circulate Catholic magazines and books? 
After all, the act of composition, the mere labor 
and achievement of writing a helpful article or a 
whole volume that makes for Catholic interests and 
is notably useful for the spread and the intensifica¬ 
tion of the true Catholic spirit, is but the beginning 
of a good work. The writer has expended just so 
much time and labor, and he or she shall have a 
reward in heaven according to the spirit of love of 

181 


182 Spreading the Good JVord 

God and the neighbor, the supernatural intention 
and effort with which the work was carried through. 
It is a meritorious work, let us say, and it is over. 
The article or the book is ready for the readers’ 
eyes. 

So the writer’s part is done. But if the article 
or the book is truly adapted to help the cause of 
the Church and to save souls, a world of meritorious 
activity now opens up to all who can promote the 
reading of this work. Whoever is the means of 
putting the book or article into the hands of those 
men and women who but for him would never 
have seen or at least would never have read it, 
gains a merit entirely his own. He is the carrier 
of the good word to them. For them, in a sense, 
he writes the book over again, by bringing it to 
their attention who would otherwise never have 
come by it. If someone makes a remark that is 
wise and helpful to souls, and you, standing by and 
hearing, store that bit of wisdom in your memory 
and tell it to some one else w T ho was not there to 
hear; or if you learn some profitable practice in the 
spiritual life, some good method of examining the 
conscience, or efficacious means of fervor in prayer, 
and tell it to some one else, are you not, for that 
other, as truly a benefactor as though you had origi¬ 
nated the helpful suggestion yourself? In spirit¬ 
ual things our merit for what we give to others 


Spreading the Good IVord 183 

does not depend on whether we have originated it 
or not, but on the spirit with which we give and 
the benefit we mean to do to them. 

Now apply the same principle to the spreading 
of a good article or pamphlet or book. If it is 
you who are the means of bringing it to the 
attention of another and getting him to read it, you 
are to be credited with the good you do to him. 
The writer of the book is by that time far away, 
engaged in some other task, perhaps for the moment 
utterly forgetful of the work he did many days ago. 
Without your intervention whatever there is of 
profit or information in that book could perhaps by 
no possibility come to the notice of So-and-So whom 
you now get to read it. The writer’s merit in the 
matter, whatever it may have been, is gained and 
finished. If now he were here in your place, he 
might acquire just so much additional merit by per¬ 
suading, with a good intention, this friend of yours 
to read the article or book. But he cannot—it is 
you, who appreciate the value of the book, who 
have the opportunity of calling it to the notice of 
this other man or woman. For them you become, 
as it were, the meritorious author of the book at 
least in so far as without your help they never 
would have found it, and so, in a manner of speak¬ 
ing, you re-create the book for them. 

It is rather odd that there is not more eagerness, 


184 Spreading the Good Word 

even among devout Catholics, for the spreading of 
Catholic literature. We evidently do not appreciate, 
as do those outside the Church, the influence of the 
printed word. Or is it that we imagine that the 
true religion, having the protection of Almighty 
God, the help of the Holy Ghost, and its own in¬ 
trinsic truth and beauty to recommend and pro¬ 
mote it, is entirely independent of all other aids? 
The truth is, that the good message of God must, 
in His providence, be spread abroad by much the 
same means as any other good message. The truths 
of Faith are to be communicated by the same means 
as any other truth. When we come on any specially 
interesting or profitable bit of information that will 
be valuable to our friends, we take pains to send 
to them the paper, pamphlet, book in which it is con¬ 
tained. We must be ready to do the same thing in 
regard to the truths of Faith, the information that 
will help them to save their souls. 

The sects that are struggling so hard to increase 
their membership in our country and to save them¬ 
selves from extinction, show an amazing industry 
in spreading literature to propagate their teachings. 
One goes into the railroad stations in some places 
and finds book racks filled with newspapers and 
pamphlets for free distribution on their various 
’ologies and ’isms. They have well-endowed bu¬ 
reaus of publication that spread clouds of pamphlets 


Spreading the Good Word 185 

and leaflets everywhere into the hands of those whom 
they consider influential or likely to embrace their 
creed. Their churches have their own “post office 
bureaus,” as they are called, whose purpose it is to 
mail regularly great quantities of printed matter as 
propaganda, to whatever addresses they find or have 
furnished them. Finally, they are pestiferously en¬ 
ergetic in getting the books that defend, explain or 
propagate their creed, into all the main public li¬ 
braries and branch stations that they can influence 
to take them on their shelves. 

This all indicates that though wrong in creed, 
they are quite wise in the means they take to spread 
their teachings. And if, as is the fact, this per¬ 
sistent circulation of printed matter actually in¬ 
duces men and women to join these false creeds and 
to become enthusiasts for error, what an immense 
efficacy the same zeal would have if employed for 
the spread of the truth of Christ, which has the 
grace of God to recommend it and for which the 
heart of the world is hungry and its soul athirst? 
It is sad to think that while error is helped so pow¬ 
erfully by the mighty engine of the press, the truth 
of Christ is sometimes quite unknown to hungry 
souls who would most eagerly embrace it if you, 
let us say, would spend only a tithe of your time, 
effort, money, in spreading Catholic literature. 

There are so many ways. To begin with, there 


186 Spreading the Good Word 

is the very practical means of having a little lend¬ 
ing library of your own. If there are a dozen 
Catholic books in which you are thoroughly inter¬ 
ested, and with whose contents you are therefore 
familiar, you can do great good, just in the circle 
of your acquaintance, by lending them from time 
to time to a friend. 

“Here is a book I like very much, I wonder if 
you would care to read it,” you might remark. 
Quite probably your friend will care, and will be 
grateful to you for your considerate kindness. 
“There is a chapter in this book that seems to me 
excellent. Take it with you, and let me know if 
you like it,” will send another volume of your lend¬ 
ing library on its travels. You not only do a service 
to the Church by these little acts of zeal. You also 
help your friends, who will be grateful to you for 
opening these little doors for them into heaven. 

Then, there is the method of getting books into 
the libraries. Those in charge of public libraries 
are always pleased to receive suggestions. But it 
is an injustice to them to induce them to buy books 
that will not be read. So you will be wise to make 
some provision for putting into circulation the books 
that are added to the library at your suggestion. 
This can be done by inducing some of your friends 
to take out the books and to recommend them to 
their friends as occasion arises. You may make a 




Spreading the Good Word 1 87 

little list of the books, with their library numbers, 
and pass it about to those who may be interested in 
reading the books in question. Sometimes the only 
way to ensure the presence of a Catholic book on 
the shelves of a public library is to make a present 
of it to the institution. One would think that more 
Catholics who are comfortably off, would take this 
means of helping Catholic literature. After all, to 
give a book to a public library is rather a noble and 
public-spirited thing to do, and, besides, the benefit 
is not all one-sided. The library expends some care 
and trouble on the book in its turn. It is catalogued, 
-indexed, given a place on the shelves, where many 
readers may see it—in a word, it becomes the sub¬ 
ject of expert study and care that are well worth 
while the sacrifice the donor has made to send it. 

Then, there is the admirable enterprise of begin¬ 
ning a Catholic Free Library in your locality. 
Really, those who are instrumental in commencing 
such a work, are building better than they know. 
Experience has shown that, properly conducted, by 
persons of judgment and enthusiasm, a Catholic li¬ 
brary is a perfect hotbed of fervor, of conversions 
among the non-Catholic readers, and returns to the 
practice of their Faith among the Catholics. We 
remember a conversation with the zealous head of 
such a library in one of our large cities. She was a 
lady who had a flourishing business of her own to 


188 Spreading the Good Word 

attend to, but somehow contrived between whiles to 
carry most of the burden of a Catholic library in a 
downtown office building. At its noon hour she 
dealt out the books to throngs of working girls from 
the offices and stores, who crowded to get “a good 
book please” from her experienced counsel. In the 
morning before business and after hours in the after¬ 
noon, she was at her post again, advising, encourag¬ 
ing, pointing out to her faithful clients the books 
for them to read! 

She had the most remarkable instances to give 
of the results of Catholic reading. Some ten or 
twelve of the boys and girls who had come to help 
in her work and had gotten interested in the reading 
of the spiritual books on her shelves, had developed 
vocations to the religious life and gone off to become 
Sisters, Brothers, or Priests. 

Besides the libraries, private and public, there are 
a vast number of other ways of distributing Catholic 
literature. To re-mail one’s magazines to lonely 
Catholics, to leave one’s Catholic paper in a rail- 
road station or on the cars, where someone will pick 
it up and read it, to have a habit of subscribing for 
Catholic magazines in favor of public libraries or 
of public institutions, with the request in the latter 
case, that they be put where the inmates may have 
access to them—all these are excellent ways. 

If you will only cultivate a lively interest in the 


Spreading the Good IVord 189 

matter, many opportunities will come your way, of 
doing a good turn here and there for Catholic books 
and papers. It is only necessary to have your eyes 
open for tactful ways of calling others’ attention to 
the books and articles you like yourself, and to give 
them the chance of reading them. Let us repeat the 
moving reflection, that when you are the means of 
getting another to read a well-written and effective 
bit of Catholic doctrine, principles or apologetics, 
or indeed of anything that expresses and spreads the 
spirit of the Church and her teaching, you revive for 
yourself the merit of the one who wrote this helpful 
and moving thing. You re-create his good deed by 
passing on the flame of his inspiration, and you prac¬ 
tice in a very meritorious way what perhaps you have 
come to think yourself excluded from by the lack 
of talent or opportunity—to-wit, the much-needed 
and ever-timely apostolate of the pen. 


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